Who Is Senator Biden?

One of our close, family friends is working as a secretary for Senator Biden, the senator from Delaware who is running for the democratic nomination. Senator Biden has made a career of small-time campaigning, which explains why I heard an in depth interview with him on NPR. The interview played to his strength - foreign policy - and I ended up being pretty impressed with what he had to say. It made me wonder, just who is this 3rd nominee, who doesn't have the money or pizazz of a Clinton or an Obama? He definitely started the campaign off badly by referring to Obama as articulate, bright and "clean" - all words that are often highly offensive to the black community, for obvious reasons. One of my friends recently pointed out to me that when a white person wants to compliment a black person, they frequently use the word "articulate" - which has become racially coded as a result. So Biden definitely deserved the heat he got for that comment - I mean, his use of "clean" is just ridiculous. But, to be honest, I think he was making the point that in today's racial politics, a man who is African American, but also a bit racially ambiguous, good looking, young and charismatic - Obama, has an immediate appeal to the public which is unrelated to his politics.

Anyways, you can look up more about Biden for yourselves. What I want to focus on is trying to tease out what his energy plans are, and whether he has as good a handle on those as he does foreign policy.

Biden seems to focus on the national security dimension of energy - largely oil dependency issues.

"There is no question our oil dependence is threatening our national security. It helps fuel the fundamentalism we're fighting. Our oil dependence limits our options and our influence around the world, because oil rich countries pursuing policies we oppose can stand up to us, while oil dependent allies may be afraid to stand with us. If we don't change our policy, oil will further empower the countries that produce it, restrict our options, and undermine our economic and physical security. Where we can have the most impact is stopping our demand for oil from increasing as our economy grows. We know where to start: expand alternative fuels and improve vehicle efficiency. We can do this. We can absolutely do this." – Senator Joe Biden

He also seems to be particularly interested in transportation issues - he has proposed making fuel economy standards more stringent by a rate of about 4% per year, and requiring that all cars be flex-fuel cars (able to use E85) by 2017. He also has introduced legislation that would make it mandatory for large gas and oil companies to stock alternative fuel (E85) at their gas stations. He also is interested in directly increasing ethanol production. He also says that he is in favor of creating an energy portfolio where 20% of US electricity would come from renewable sources. He has no deadline for this, which makes it a bit suspect though.

What about climate change?

Senator Biden has an entire section, separate from energy, on his site which recommends that the US begin immediate action to face climate change. He wants to use US leverage to convince China to take steps. He also wants to reduce Greenhouse gases to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, using a cap and trade system. His other two main ideas are energy efficiency, 20% electricity from renewables and increased vehicle fuel efficiency standards.

How does he compare to the other candidates?

Clinton is interesting -she apparently has it out for oil companies, and is determined to use their "windfall" profits to fund the research and development of alternative energy. She is really quite tough in one video I watched on her website - arguing that either the oil companies will voluntarily seek to fund alternative energy, or that they must donate a portion of their profits to her 'Strategic Energy Fund' to fund alternative energy. And let me be clear, when Clinton talks about alternative energy, she has three ideas in mind: clean coal, ethanol and hybrid vehicles. Not exactly running the full gamut of ideas. Then again, all the candidates seem to focus on these technologies over the riskier (but far cleaner) ones of wind and solar. Does this seem a bit backward to anyone? Yes, oil companies have been highly successful. But is it really okay to punish them for their financial success by forcing them to donate large sums of money to put other corporations into business - without any benefit to themselves? I mean, come on.

Obama seems to have ideas virtually identical to those of Biden - although the language on his website is incredibly fluffy. But maybe I am just getting old and cynical.

Actually - notice that all three candidates are huge on ethanol and clean coal, but there are virtually no real discussions about climate change economics - ie, whether to start a market for carbon tons, like the Kyoto protocol, and if so - how to auction off those permits (or give them for free, as the EU unfortunately did) - as I have said before, the real debate about climate change is just not happening.