Obama, Romney offer vastly different visions of the nation's energy future

Oct 20 - San Jose Mercury News

Solyndra, the shuttered solar manufacturing plant that sits off Interstate 880 in Fremont, has become a potent political weapon in this year's presidential election. It's also a symbol of the stark choice voters face Nov. 6 -- deciding the nation's best path to energy independence.

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney offer vastly different visions of the nation's energy future that have key implications for Silicon Valley, which has reinvented itself as a global center of clean technology.

Those visions took center stage during this week's presidential debate, the second of three.

Both candidates tout an energy strategy that relies on expanded drilling for oil and increasingly tapping the nation's abundant supply of natural gas. But, as the debate showed, the similarities end there.

Obama remains committed to a diverse energy portfolio that includes wind, solar and biofuels. He's called for the elimination of tax breaks for Big Oil, and his administration has raised fuel-efficiency standards for cars.

Romney, on the other hand, has made his opposition to tax breaks and subsidies for renewable energy a key focus of his campaign. He regularly blasts federal stimulus funding for cleantech and held a high-profile news conference outside the Solyndra plant in May. The company, which was awarded $528 million in federal loan guarantees, went from poster child of the Recovery Act to pariah when it declared bankruptcy in August 2011.

"It's a symbol not of success, but of failure," Romney told reporters. "I'm afraid the reason that the stimulus has been unsuccessful, that the turnaround has taken so long to occur, that the recovery has been tepid, is that the president fails to understand the basic nature of free enterprise in America."

Silicon Valley and the wider Bay Area are home to scores of renewable energy start-ups, from companies working on advanced batteries for electric vehicles to software companies mining data on how consumers use electricity and can be encouraged to conserve.

The Bay Area has more than 78,000 green jobs, including 20,445 jobs in emerging cleantech industries like the smart grid, solar and fuel cells, according to a 2011 report by the nonpartisan Brookings Institution. But many of the subsidies and policies designed to spur cleantech are winding down, raising questions about how renewable energy can best compete with fossil fuels going forward.

"If Romney wins, the whole dynamic around support for wind and solar changes," said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings. "Subsidy-driven support for renewables in general is on a downward trajectory, and how that gets managed affects a lot of industries."

Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution who was a top aide to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, said that Romney has made a shrewd tactical choice on energy policy by focusing heavily on industries-- namely coal--that play well in critical swing states, particularly Ohio.

"You haven't heard Romney hang clean energy over the president's head the way that some expected," Whalen said. "He could talk about how cleantech is this rabbit hole of wasted money. Instead, he's focusing on those industries that are threatened by Obama. It speaks more to people's livelihood."

Another big issue is the Production Tax Credit, which provides a tax incentive for utility-scale wind turbines but is scheduled to sunset Dec. 31. The future of the wind industry is a key issue in states such as Iowa and Colorado but also California, which has seen new wind farms sprout up in places like Solano County.

"Gov. Romney will say he's got an all-of-the-above plan, but basically his plan is to let the oil companies write the energy policies," Obama said during this week's debate. "He's got the oil and gas part, but he doesn't have the clean energy part. And if we are only thinking about tomorrow or the next day and not thinking about 10 years from now, we're not going to control our own economic future."

Romney, who has accused the president of starting a "war on coal," fired back that he believes in renewables and thinks they are an important part of the energy mix. But "let's take advantage of the energy resources we have, as well as the energy sources for the future."

During the first debate, Romney took shots at Solyndra, Palo Alto-based Tesla Motors and lithium-ion battery manufacturer Ener1, based in New York, saying the president seemed to "pick the losers."

Tesla declined to comment or respond to Romney's remarks. The company has experienced delays manufacturing its Model S sedan but has brought manufacturing jobs to Fremont and has more than 2,500 employees.

"Of all the things to bash, why bash innovation?" said Marty Neese, chief operating officer at SunPower, Silicon Valley's dominant solar manufacturer. "Tesla is trying to innovate at the old NUMMI plant. If you're pro-business, it seems like something to promote, not denigrate."

In the first debate, Romney claimed that "about half" of the clean-energy companies that received U.S.-backed loans have gone out of business. In truth, 26 companies received loan guarantees, and three (Abound, Beacon and Solyndra) have filed for bankruptcy.

Anne Smart, director of energy at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said the biggest impact for Silicon Valley if Romney wins will be on clean-energy research and development.

"Romney wasn't clear in his remarks exactly how he feels about all R&D," she said, "but the Republican Party, through efforts like the No More Solyndras Act, have made it clear that certain Department of Energy research funding programs would be hit, as well as Department of Defense efforts at clean energy and clean technology procurement."

Dan Schnur, a former GOP operative who now directs the Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, said that both Obama and Romney are speaking about energy in the language that matters: that of swing state voters in the Rust Belt, not voters in Silicon Valley.

"The country is going to move more toward renewables under either administration," Schnur said. "The question is at what pace, and with what level of government encouragement."

Contact Dana Hull at 408-920-2706. Follow her at Twitter.com/danahull.

dueling energy plans

Highlights of President Barack Obama's energy plan: Double fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks Promote the "safe, responsible" development of natural gas Expand domestic oil production by opening up the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic for drilling Increase production of wind and solar energy Invest in "clean coal" technology More information: www.barackobama.com/energy

Highlights of Mitt Romney's energy plan: Approve the Keystone XL pipeline Amend the Clean Air Act to exclude regulation of carbon Expand drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, both the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelves, Western lands, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the Alaska coast Reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission so reactors can be built within two years Conduct a full inventory of the nation's carbon-based energy resources Overhaul the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act

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