Mitt Romney and Barack Obama: What Their Campaigns Say About the Environment

As it is that I’m concerned about the environment and how our thinking about the environment affects the manner in which we live our lives and how those actions affect our rivers and streams, the air we breath, and the creatures that share this planet with us, I venture into the political from time to time to examine the thinking behind new or proposed legislation or the rhetoric about the environment that comes from candidates and parties. I have pointed out that some of the rhetoric of the GOP over the last 30 years runs counter to its traditional conservationist attitude toward the environment. And some of what the Grand Old Party says and does also strikes me as weird or crazy.

            That being said, it piqued my curiosity to look at the websites of the presidential candidates governor Mitt Romney and president Barack Obama to see what they both had to say about the environment.

            Energy and the environment are listed as issues addressed on Obama’s campaign website. Clicking into that webpage, topics include wilderness protection, increasing the fuel economy of our automobiles, as well as improving the quality of our air. Some of the ideas listed on this page I consider dubious. With the environmental destruction of modern mining methods, no kind of coal is ever clean, no matter how many times you scrub it. Constructing great wind farms in the desert can also affect the land and be deadly for birds and bats.

I don’t’ believe that Barack Obama has a great environmental record. But whether or not I agree with the policies and actions he endorses, the President has established the environment as a campaign issue.

On the other hand, clicking over to Mitt Romney’s website, of the 24 subjects that his campaign lists as issues, the environment is not mentioned once. If you look at the Energy issue page, it says that Mitt Romney, as president, will “make every effort to safeguard the environment.” And yet a familiar trope of “regulatory reform,” which means loosening or doing completely away with environmental laws appears further down the page.

Even among Democrats the environment is not a big issue right now, overshadowed by jobs and pocketbook concerns. And yet it seems so odd to me that someone could run for president and expect votes from a constituency that is unconcerned about the health and safety of our waters or our ability to breath clean air.