This morning Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling will unveil their plan for Virginia’s energy future.
This comes on top of a primary contest in which the Democratic candidates have been arguing about who’s the “greenest” of the three.
It is the first gubernatorial election in Virginia that has had energy matters (pardon the bad pun) on the front burner.
Coal, Gas, Nuclear, Hydrogen, Oil, Solar, Biofuels, Wind-
Green Jobs, Offshore Drilling, Clean Coal, Wind Turbines-
We’ll hear arguments about all of it.
And a lot is at stake.
The Democrats clearly believe that the public has become “greener” and that the citizenry will trust them more than Republicans to chart an energy future that moves to renewables and protects the environment.
Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling think otherwise.
While they will support certain green energy initiatives, they believe that further development of nonrenewables such as oil, natural gas, and coal will be part of any energy future that is reliable, reasonably priced, and geared toward making America less dependent on foreign sources.
I am also coming to believe that a lot is at stake for the environmental movement in Virginia as well.
For years, environmentalists have caimed that they have widespread public support for their positions and have lamented the absence of their issues from the political dialogue in the state’s high profile elections.
Not any more.
The energy/environmental nexus will be at the heart of a race with a national profile.
And because elections matter, the outcome in Virginia is likely to have national reverberations as the parties prepate their issue positions for 2010 and beyond.
What the public says
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