NUVO’s News Editor Rebecca Townsend interviewed each candidate for governor, the results of which can be seen in NUVO. She excerpted questions related to the environment for our purposes here at Indiana Living Green.
Rupert Boneham. Submitted photo.
NUVO: What do you see as Indiana’s number one environmental issue and how would your administration respond to it?
Boneham: As you know, I am the outdoorsy guy. I grew up in Kokomo, Indiana, catching snakes and fish and turtles and crawdads in the Wildcat creek. I want to protect our waterways. I want to protect our air. I want to protect our soil. The best way to do that is to aggressively go after the people that are breaking the law and not just fine them, a slap on the wrist, but actually pursue them criminally and financially. When we catch people dumping or polluting, we prosecute and recover the money from them to make it right. It’s that simple. We don’t need to create more regulations. We need to enforce what we have.
NUVO: What’s your take on Duke’s development of the Edwardsport coal gasification plant, and do you believe the current proposed settlements of cost overruns is in Hoosiers’ best interests?
Boneham: I would have to dig more into that because we’re dealing with some of the [hydraulic] fracking things, too, that I don’t know the long-term effects of …[U]nfortunately, there’s not enough transparency …. it is a billion dollars over [budget]. Would it be more cost effective to stop right now or should we continue on? I’ll sit here right now and say that would take putting my team together and really doing analysis of how far we want to continue.
NUVO: Are you at all concerned about manmade global warming or climate change?
Boneham: In Indiana … there is talk of the methane gases released from the feedlots and the cattle farms, the pig farms. I’d like to see some of these landfills try to collect methane gases. Now, they still might just be burning them off, unfortunately. I would like to see some collection and actual use, but Indiana, just like the rest of the country, has to get some control over the fluorocarbons, the methane gas, the air pollutants. For us in Indiana we have focused a lot on the farms and all the pesticides we have put on the ground. We haven’t focused as much on the air.
John Gregg. Submitted photo.
NUVO: What do you see as Indiana’s number one environmental issue, and how would your administration respond to it?
Gregg: You know, I don’t know if I could say one. We’ve got a number of issues out there when I talk with people. But the one that I think concerns me — that may not be on everybody’s radar — is we need to be concerned about our water supply. Not so much from just contamination, we need to be concerned because there’s a finite amount of water, and I think we’re going to see over the next ten to twenty years that he or she who has the water is going to be the one that attracts the business and industry, the population growth. So I think the key issue is the basic element of life, one of the two basic elements of life is water, and I think Indiana’s got some great aquifers in certain areas of the state.
NUVO: What’s your take on Duke’s development of the Edwardsport coal gasification plant, and do you believe the current proposed settlements of cost overruns is in Hoosiers’ best interests?
GREGG: I know what it is, because it’s in the county where I live, but I don’t know what the final settlement was. Have they reached it?
NUVO: They have a proposed settlement.
Gregg: I’d be willing to comment on that after they get it settled, because I’d need to see that, but I can tell you that I’m an advocate of … burning Indiana coal. I’m an advocate of trying new technology, and I think that Indiana has about the sixth lowest utility cost, but with that said, cost overruns: I am not a fan of them being handled by the consumer. Cost overruns are something that I think it’s only fair that that’s something the utility regulatory commission decides, and I’ll be anxious to see what they decide. I think that’s going to be an issue, and some of our power plants around the states are older and are mothballed. That’s something we’re going to have to look at.
Fortunately right now we’ve got cheap natural gas … coal prices are low. But the cost of building those power plants are enormous. I know you have a lot of readers that are basically anti-utility. I always kind of, coming from the coal industry, I was always sensitive to that. I tell people that we long ago in this country decided we wanted to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. That battle’s been fought.
NUVO: Are you at all concerned about manmade global warming or climate change?
Gregg: I’m trying to focus on the things that Indiana can deal with, what the governor’s office can deal with, and I don’t think on those issues that that’s anything the governor can deal with, but I will tell you I’m not one of these people who discounts global warming. We’re obviously going through some type of change and extremes, and whether one wants to call it global warming or something else, it’s legit, it’s real.
Mike Pence. Submitted photo.
NUVO: What do you see as Indiana’s number one environmental issue and how would your administration respond to it?
Pence: I think Indiana’s made great progress over the last eight years in compliance with federal standards and more importantly the public’s expectation for clean water, clean air, clean soil. But I think maybe the greatest challenge that we have is to make sure that the State of Indiana is implementing our environmental standards and working with federal government on environmental standards in ways that meet our environment goals but also are not a hindrance to job creation and growth. I’m someone who believes that a strong economy and a clean environment are not in competition with each other, necessarily. And that there are ways to grow our economy and we can continue to make progress on a clean environment, but it will take the right leadership and the right personnel in positions to do that.
I was in Portage, Ind., recently in a heavily industrial part of the state and they were heralding how they’d done a shoreline park adjacent to a growing industrial area. It was a great example of how you can improve the environment and improve the economy and that’s the balance we’ll look for and the challenge moving forward.
NUVO: What’s your take on Duke’s development of the Edwardsport coal gasification plant, and do you believe the current proposed settlements of cost overruns is in Hoosiers’ best interests?
Pence: We’ve not expressed an opinion on that. If I’m elected governor, we’ll take a very careful look at all the issues affecting Indiana’s utilities with an eye toward ensuing that we promote policies that keep energy at a relatively low cost. One of the benefits for us in terms of attracting jobs to Indiana is we’re a relatively low-cost state from an energy perspective. I want Indiana to continue to pursue and maintain policies that will maintain that competitive low-cost energy advantage that Indiana has. But any specific issues from my perspective would await us actually being given responsibility in the area. Then, we’ll listen, learn and lead. That’s how I like to approach things.
NUVO: Are you at all concerned about manmade climate change?
Pence: I’m concerned about policies like a national energy tax that would work such a hardship on Hoosier utility ratepayers. I think the issue of climate change — and the cause of any climate change that’s occurring — is a subject of scientific debate. And I think the science should always drive that debate, but I strongly oppose efforts to enact cap and trade legislation at the national level. And if elected governor, I’ll strongly oppose efforts to impose cap and trade through regulatory policy by tying Indiana’s utilities to standards of other states in the country.
In Indiana, we get the overwhelming majority of our electricity from coal-burning power plants. I support clean-coal technology. Indiana continues to be a leader in that area. To embrace a cap-and- trade regime would be to work a great hardship on Hoosier families and Hoosier businesses because of our reliance on coal-burning power plants. I’ll strongly oppose those efforts as governor.
SIDEBAR:
According to interviews in Scientific American, the presidential candidates had this to say about climate change:
Obama: Climate change is the one of the biggest issues of this generation, and we have to meet this challenge by driving smart policies that lead to greater growth in clean energy generation and result in a range of economic and social benefits.
Romney: I am not a scientist myself, but my best assessment of the data is that the world is getting warmer, that human activity contributes to that warming, and that policymakers should therefore consider the risk of negative consequences. However, there remains a lack of scientific consensus on the issue — on the extent of the warming, the extent of the human contribution, and the severity of the risk — and I believe we must support continued debate and investigation within the scientific community.
