NOVAK: Can we say that when the president and his speech of last September in Saginaw, Michigan talked about treating carbon dioxide as a pollutant which a lot of conservatives think is echo extremism. That that was something the staffers put in and it really wasn't fully stamped out by this administration?
DANIELS: I don't know. I was not part of the campaign. I would just simply say that it was a statement that was ambiguous, needed to be clarified. The president did it. He did it decisively and clearly in the face of what he new would be a criticism. And now the administration position is clear we think it's consistent with the world in which as current circumstances demonstrate we need more energy if we're going to have economic growth. And without that we won't have a clean environment.
Daniels was a part of the National Energy Policy Development Group and insight into Daniels’ involvement in an administration that made it difficult for regulations to be implemented and enforced can be found here on OMB Watch, which published a report on “The Bush Legacy.”
In an administration filled top-to-bottom with industry representatives, you would expect corporate lobbyists and CEOs of regulated industries to have easy access to government officials. Easy, however, doesn’t begin to describe the level of intimacy that existed between industry and the Bush administration. Even nonpartisan critics used far harsher terms. In 2006, a former Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security told The New York Times that during his tenure, he witnessed relationships he considered “almost incestuous.”147
One of the most illustrative – and flagrant – examples of how these improper relationships worked was the National Energy Policy Development Group, headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Formed in the first weeks of the Bush administration, the Energy Task Force (as it was informally known) was charged with developing a comprehensive policy to “promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and distribution of energy for the future.”148 That may have been its official mission statement, said environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., “but it behaved more like a band of pirates divvying up the booty.”
Somehow, Daniels has managed to govern without having to answer for any of the actions he took as a member of the Bush Administration. That may be because Democratic opposition to Republican policies in Indiana is weak and spineless or it may be that Daniels has distanced himself from his Bush years (after all there is little mention in his biography of his work as OMB Director).
This may be why the Republicans have given Daniels the task of being the figurehead who leads the charge against the Waxman-Markey legislation that may or may not be deliberated over on Capitol Hill soon.
Indiana gets 95% of its electricity from coal-fired power plants. So, some of what Daniels has to say about jobs and utility costs rising might be true.
Gannett News Service found in March of 2007 that the impact on Indiana could be severe, but that is because Indiana from 1960-2001 had the sixth highest increase in carbon dioxide emissions among the states and was seventh in 2001 among states with the most carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
TheCLEAN.org and the Civil Society Institute have conducted surveys showing support for a “shift from coal and nuclear power” to a promotion of “wind and solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, hybrids and other highly fuel-efficient cars.”
Despite Daniels’ thinking that Midwesterners may fall victim to imperialism, the report on how severe the impact on Indiana would be if Congress attacked greenhouse gases did include these quotes from him:
"There's an interesting thing about southern Indiana, where there was once a lot of oil and natural gas and coal. We've got a very excellent substructure for sequestering CO2," said Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. "As you move to electrical generation and other processes that throw off CO2, and there's either a requirement or market or both for burying the stuff, we are well situated."
"But I don't think it's a cause of panic," he said. "And if it becomes national policy, then we just have to find smart ways to adapt to it."
Which means, whatever this legislation does or does not do (and that needs to be further explored), those in the Midwest will survive.
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