Cap-and-tirade: A look at Mitt Romney's environmental policy record

It's been awhile since I last wrote anything. I have the excuse that I've been busy, it's been a holiday, etc. But, really, I've just been watching James Bond movies.

Now it's time to get back on the horse and continue on with our current feature: Cap-and-tirade: A look at GOP candidates' environmental policy records. Last time, we took a look at Jon Huntsman, the younger, greener, less spray-tanned counterpart to today's superstar, Mitt Romney.

Just like last time, I find that I can't do a better job of outlining Romney's environmental bona fides than a real journalist, so once again I'll be pulling heavily from the analysis done by Andrew Schenkel from his blog on the Mother Nature Network.

* * * * *

 You don't even have to have been watching much news to know that Mitt Romney is currently the front-runner to represent the Republican party in the 2012 election. He's got charm, extensive experience in both government and the private sector, and great name recognition (which, unfortunately, comes from a failed attempt at the Republican nomination four years ago). Last time, Romney lost to the guy that lost to Obama. So what makes people think he's going to fare better this time? First of all, he's trying consistency. Schenkel writes that one of the reasons he lost the nomination the first time was that he was widely viewed as a waffler. But lately Romney has been sticking to his guns, come hell or hypocrisy. This is particularly true with regards to his environmental record.

Romney is extremely moderate, and his views on environmentalism reflect this, at least as far as global warming is concerned. We've written in the past that Romney has acknowledged climate change and the likelihood of it's anthropogenic origin, and has stuck by that conviction despite it's unpopularity among conservatives. He has supported regional cap-and-trade initiatives in the past, but his support for those has wavered since, due in all likelihood to the competitive disadvantage those would put us in relative to China.

He's a little more in-line with his conservative counterparts when it comes to oil subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and energy independence. But in that vain, he has a hard time escaping the flip-flopping/hypocritical perspective people have of him. He's against subsidizing oil, but for subsidizing ethanol. He's all for energy independence -- including drilling for oil in ANWR -- but against the Cape Wind Project, in which lots and lots of windmills would be put up off the coast of -- you guessed it -- Massachusetts.

My assessment of Romney's environmental record is this: he's an environmental opportunist. He's for ethanol because that will win him Iowa. He's against oil subsidies because he lives in liberal New England. He's for drilling in ANWR because that makes people stop paying attention to Sarah Palin and start paying attention to him, but he's against Cape Wind because it upsets his rich, powerful friends. In the end, he's not unlike any politician that would behave the same way. If you really weigh a candidate's environmental record heavily when making your choice at the polls, Romney probably won't even appear on your radar.