The Candidate

Ron Paul is a veteran Congressman and doctor from Lake Jackson, TX. Congressman Paul served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the late 1970s until he relinquished his House seat in 1984. He returned to Congress in 1997 and currently serves on the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The Position

The Environment issue page on Congressman Paul’s website states that Ron Paul is, “a co-sponsor of legislation designed to encourage the development of alternative and sustainable energy. H.R. 550 extends the investment tax credit to solar energy property and qualified fuel cell property, and H.R. 1772 provides tax credits for the installation of wind energy property.

Other statements focus specifically on environmental issues. There is no detailed clean energy plan on the site. In general Congressman Paul’s stance favors free markets and states that, “Currently, preemptive regulations and pay-to-pollute schemes favor those wealthy enough to perform the regulatory tap dance, while those who own the polluted land rarely receive a quick or just resolution to their problems.”

Our Take

Congressman Paul puts forward some interesting and attractive concepts. He is a strong advocate for free markets and obviously believes that the federal government is ill equipped to properly manage the many systems or agencies that are in charge of energy production and emissions in the United States.

This approach in general is preferable over schemes that soak companies via high taxes in order to fund big government programs. Ron Paul does suffer the same problem as other Republican candidates with his website proposing a number of interesting ideas without a detailed strategy for our clean energy future.