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Climate Change

Assessing the Romney Energy Plan

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  • Michael Levi
    David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies

Mitt Romney released his energy plan yesterday. I critique it in a new piece in Foreign Policy. Here’s the kicker:

“There are many good reasons to embrace rising U.S. oil and gas production and to reform the way government regulates their development. The Romney strategy for fossil-fuel development has some reasonable proposals on both fronts. But when it comes to comprehensively exploiting energy opportunities and confronting energy-related risks, the strategy falls woefully short.”

I also take issue with some of the claims that the proposal makes about the likely consequences of its policies. In particular, while the proposal relies heavily on recent Citigroup estimates of potential job gains and economic growth from energy developments, the Romney plan differs from the Citigroup scenario in important ways, particularly when it comes to efficiency measures. It strikes me that those differences make it incorrect to tightly link the Citigroup projections to the Romney plan.

Click here to read the rest of the FP article.