Source: BusinessGreen

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney will today set out a new strategy for ramping up oil and gas production, designed to ensure North America is energy self-sufficient by the end of the decade.

The programme looks set to play to concerns expressed by GOP politicians in Congress and state legislatures, both of which have put an expansion of domestic fossil fuel production at the top of wish lists released in the lead-up to the release of Romney’s full energy policy plans.

Energy is a key battleground ahead of November’s election and Romney is expected to argue that his plan will not only tackle rising gasoline prices, but also create three million jobs in energy and supporting sectors.

In contrast to Obama’s “all of the above” energy policy, which includes a range of renewable technologies and nuclear alongside conventional fuels, Romney is avowedly supportive of extractive fossil fuels.

He has pledged to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, linking Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, and plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

A white paper released by the campaign outlines how individual states would also be permitted to manage energy development on federal lands within their borders, likely to lead to a major upswing in oil and gas leasing in areas that have been off-limits under the Obama administration.

Romney’s campaign website says he supports government funding for “basic research” into clean energy, and he told a fund-raising event in Little Rock, Arkansas, this week that renewables were part of his plan.

“I’m going to take advantage of our energy resources: oil, coal, gas, nuclear, renewables, wind, solar,” he said. “North America will be energy independent by the last year of my second term.”

However, he has been a strong critic of the loan guarantee programme aimed at bringing particular clean technologies to market and opposes extending a tax credit for the wind power industry that expires at the end of the year.

Campaign officials have signalled that Romney supports renewables, but only where they can compete with fossil fuels without recourse to government support – a stance that has drawn criticism from Democrats who have pointed out that the Republicans want to extend tax breaks and subsidies for oil and gas firms.

Romney has also attacked the role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), saying regulations governing the release of Mercury and other toxins from power plants are too costly, and hinting that he would remove the agency’s powers to regulate emissions.