Road to the White House: Energy rises as primary issue

Democrats focus on global warming, Republicans zero in on independence

Oil prices flirting with $100 a barrel, warnings of climate change and holiday road trips fueled by gas topping $3 a gallon are combining to give energy issues unprecedented prominence in the presidential campaign.

“The bottom line for us, we’re happy everybody is talking about it,” said David Willett, national press secretary for the Sierra Club. “Even in ‘04, while there was a clear difference between the candidates, it wasn’t really a campaign issue.”


The Republicans, with notable exceptions, have concentrated on the dangers to the nation’s strategic and economic security of relying on energy from the Middle East.

The Democrats, while embracing those same arguments, have placed much greater emphasis on the threat of global warming.

“The positions the leading Democratic candidates have advanced are, for the most part, very thoughtful, very much at the strong end of realistic,” said Manik Roy, director of congressional affairs for the Pew Center on Global Climate change. “I’m not seeing as much from the Republican candidates.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette