With the President Obama’s agenda, including the jobs bill, stalled in a politically-divided Congress, and both parties turning up their 2012 election campaigns, attention of Washington insiders is increasingly focused on the race for the Republican nomination for President. As the Rick Perry candidacy has stalled – Perry now stands behind Herman Cain in third place in most polls – Mitt Romney is now the favorite of insiders to be the Republican nominee for President. Today’s GR Energy and Climate Brief previews Romney’s energy advisors and energy policy in a potential Romney Administration.

With Chris Christie’s endorsement today, Mitt Romney stands out as the Republican most likely to win the nomination for President and is also the one candidate most likely to push a broad energy agenda. However, to do so he would need to take on the very people that he is currently courting to win the nomination. To rebut charges that he is not a true conservative, Romney has criticized Obama’s cap-and-trade program, called for an expansion of domestic energy production, and appointed advisors who strongly oppose key Obama EPA rules. However, Mitt Romney also once supported cap-and-trade and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and could find a centrist coalition for energy policy reform as President – perhaps advancing the now seemingly dormant issue of carbon pricing – but only at the risk of taking on the base of his own party. Today’s GR Energy and Climate Brief examines what we know about the energy policy of Mitt Romney, including the key advisors and areas of specific focus, to anticipate the likely shape of energy policy under a would-be President Romney.

Emphasizing Traditional Energy Production: Though Romney spoke positively in favor of renewable energy as Governor of Massachusetts, in the campaign thus far he has emphasized energy from traditional sources. He has called repeatedly for the United States to become fully energy self-sufficient within the next two decades. To do so, Romney advocates the development of all traditional American energy sources: nuclear, oil, natural gas, particularly shale, and coal. Romney says that he would open up new areas to exploration and drilling, both in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) through an executive order in the first one-hundred days of his Presidential term. Further, he says he would suspend the Particulate Matter, Coal Ash, and Mountain Top Removal Rules that have arguably hurt domestic coal production. His comments are designed to appeal to the widespread feeling within the Republican Party that the White House is placing too many limits on traditional energy production, including nuclear energy and shale gas, saying in a recent speech that the United States should “end our strategic vulnerability to an oil shut-off by nations like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.”

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