Explore Candidates and Issues
Mike Gravel on Environment and Energy
This candidate has withdrawn from the election
Global climate change must be made an issue of national security. We must act swiftly to reduce America's carbon footprint in the world by passing legislation that caps emissions. However, any legislation will have little impact on the global environment if we do not work together with other global polluters. Fighting global warming can only be effective if it is a collective global effort.
But it is a global problem, not just an American problem. The U.S. should immediately sign the Kyoto protocol and seek its ratification by the Senate.
Speech at the N.H. Institute of Politics, Manchester NH Nov 1, 2006
In addition to that we would set up an international institution made up of ourselves as leaders, taking this money from our carbon tax, invite other countries to put on a carbon tax, meld all this money together in a pool with this institution and use it to integrate the engineering and scientific community to get us off of carbon within a decade.
First, I would just get the Kyoto agreement [ratified] and get it out of the way.
Carbon energy should be taxed to provide the funding for a global effort led by the US, with willing allies, to bring together the world's scientific and engineering communities to develop energy alternatives to remove the world's energy dependence on carbon.
Speech at the N.H. Institute of Politics, Manchester NH Nov 1, 2006
My favorite is hydrogen, and that comes from wind. Stop and think...we could build 5 million 2.5 megawatt windmills and we electrify the entire nation.
And I'm also the one that brought about the Alaska pipeline by one vote in the Congress. So when you ask about the energy issues, let me just tell you....
South Carolina 2007 Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007
Q: Energy, the environment, and foreign policy all seem to be linked through our dependence on oil. What are your thoughts on this? And since you are from Alaska, what is your position on Arctic National Wildlife Refuge [ANWR] oil production? GRAVEL: I would just drop ANWR like a hot potato. At one point in my career I was very supportive of that. I think that we should end it, because I see that off Florida people don't want any drilling.
Although early in his [Gravel] political career he supported drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, he now opposes it.
Carbon energy should be taxed to provide the funding for a global effort led by the US, with willing allies, to bring together the world's scientific and engineering communities to develop energy alternatives to remove the world's energy dependence on carbon.
Speech at the N.H. Institute of Politics, Manchester NH Nov 1, 2006
I support a carbon tax. That'll raise the price of gasoline. Let's be candid about that.
2007 Dem. debate at Saint Anselm College Jun 3, 2007
Q: What do you see as the advantage of a carbon tax over a cap-and-trade program? GRAVEL: The cap-and-trade wouldn't necessarily lower emissions. Let's say I've got a coal-fired plant and it pollutes. All I've got to do is go give some money to somebody who builds a new plant that pollutes less. I get to buy permission to pollute. When you're capping and trading, you're not focusing on a solution; you're just giving somebody a break based upon something that somebody else is doing.
"We have to have an alternative. The only way you are going to enforce an alternative is to put on a carbon tax. I personally believe and know from my research that we would be off of gasoline in five years if we wanted that to happen. We could be off of carbon in 10 years. And so I will be advocating and will be pushing the American people, because the president cannot do this alone, to have a carbon tax right at the source so that it filters through the system, and then you'll begin to see the marketplace work its will to bring about this alternative"
Q: With the French system as the model, is the US woefully behind in its use of nuclear energy? GRAVEL: No, not at all. I think there had to be a maturation process. And I'm the one that started the nuclear critique in this country.
South Carolina 2007 Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007
Our government is pursuing nuclear power. It seems to me we are not thinking about the long-range environmental hazards as we plunge ahead. It is folly to force us down a road that holds grave potential for contaminating our entire planet. The by-product of this process is not a "little" harmful radio-activity from "burning" atomic fuel as the AEC would have us believe. The amount of radioactive waste, which is small only if measured by the space it fills, is already enormous if measured by the billions of people it could kill No one knows what will result from all the radioactive waste that has been dumped in the oceans and is still being dumped by other nuclear powers. And that is the point: we will not find out until it is too late--after the radioactivity has escaped.
Citizen Power, by Sen. Mike Gravel, p.177-179 Jan 1, 1972
Q: Do you believe nuclear power has a role in America's energy future? GRAVEL: I was the one who started the nuclear [power] critique back in 1969, and we were able to cap [the number of plants in the U.S.] at 150, which have now been ratcheted back to about 105. The nuclear industry is trying to crank it back up again, and a couple of significant environmentalists have bought into that. I have not. If we can have large electrical base-load plants fed by hydrogen, then we don't have to have the nuclear. Now if we were to make a breakthrough in nuclear fusion, that would dwarf everything else.
He [Gravel] also said he would raise CAFE [corporate average fuel economy] standards to European levels within three to five years.
The election in 1976 of Jimmy Carter buoyed hopes that Alaskan conservation would finally get a fair hearing. However, several members of Congress, particularly Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, remained strongly opposed to the absorption of such a large amount of land by the NPS -- which would take the land off the market and, Gravel felt, damage long-term economic development plans for Alaska. Gravel became the primary opponent to the act.
As President, he will act swiftly to reduce America's carbon footprint in the world by passing legislation that caps emissions, and lead the fight against global deforestation, which today is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouses gases.
Supports the Endangered Species Act
The Gravel Agenda: When elected President by the American people, I will: Rebuild our gridlocked transportation system and our crumbling national infrastructure
Campaign website, www.gravel2008.us, "Issues" Dec 25, 2006
Q:I've heard that you have a plan to electrify the entire transportation system of the United States. GRAVEL: Yes, I want to superimpose an electric maglev [train] system throughout the country similar to the one that currently runs between the airport and the city of Shanghai. These maglevs can travel 300 miles an hour. Imagine if we could move trucks across this country on electricity at that speed, with no environmental pollution -- what that would mean? There are a couple of companies that have sent me studies that show they can do this right across Manhattan or in downtown Washington, D.C., and it is just awesomely interesting. But you have to have a national commitment to do this, and I don't see that commitment from the Democrats or the Republicans.