As Adam already stated, the most striking difference between President Obama and Governor Romney's platforms is all in the name. Obama's explicitly references the Environment while Romney's platform does not. This is not to say that Romney plans to disregard the environment entirely; he does, however, place a much stronger emphasis on sustaining and expanding the carbon-based energy sector to create jobs. His two stipulations regarding environmental regulations concern me. The first is that he will "ensure that environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process," which is mildly concerning because it suggest to me that the government will have to bear some of the costs of companies complying with environmental regulations, which could lead to more lax implementation and lack of impetus to create new ones. At the same time, it could also lead to higher compliance, which would be a very good thing. His second point, however, is that he would "amend [the] Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview," which is quite a bit more concerning considering present issues regarding carbon emissions.
Another obvious difference between the two platforms is the emphasis that each puts on green technology. The Obama platform includes multiple stipulations regarding electric cars, low carbon fuel, clean coal, renewable resources, etc. while the Romney campaign only supports "basic research" into alternative energy funding, not even alternative energy itself. One gripe I do have with Obama is that it still places a heavy emphasis on fossil fuels which I understand, but I would like to see an emphasis on relieving our dependence on oil in general rather than just foreign oil. That said, I find Obama's merging of energy and environmental concerns far more appealing than Romney's pure emphasis on energy.
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