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Carly Fiorina on Environment |
Inside an agricultural equipment shop, Fiorina spoke to a crowd of around 250 people on the future of rural America. She says as the EPA controls more of the water in the United States, agriculture is being destroyed. By the end of August the EPA will control 95% of the water in Iowa, she said. Fiorina believes the EPA is standing in the way of affordable and reliable electricity.
To combat any "festering" problems, she said the economy will grow if regulations and power are lifted from the government. To help get the economy of the country on track, Fiorina reiterated two ways to get debt and deficit under control: grow the economy and cut spending.
Fiorina feels economy growth is being prevented by government spending. She is in favor of a zero-based budget, a "revenue-reducing tax reform," and would like tax codes simplified. "We need a government that's smaller. We need a government that's more responsive. We need a government that's not crushing the potential of this nation. But we also need a government that is competent, not inept."
Fiorina: Well certainly there are many reasons for a rational regulatory policy. But unfortunately we see too many cases where regulations have run amok, and they are costing us jobs. Let us just start with the most obvious example: that of water in our great Central Valley. In 2008, a nameless, faceless bureaucrat decided that the smelt was endangered. The remedy for this was to turn the water off flowing through the pumps in the delta, and with that decision, hundreds of thousands of acres lay fallow, tens of thousands of people at the height of it were out of work. Of course it is important to protect our environment, it is important to protect our fish and our flies and our frogs, all which are endangered in California, but it's important to protect our families as well.
Fiorina: When we have something like the Endangered Species Act--just one example--of course we need to protect our endangered species. But when, by statute, that law requires someone to disregard all social and economic impact; in other words, when the regulation says that we should protect species at any cost, and we are costing people jobs, which is what is happening today, then that would be an example of where I think common sense should, and compassion should prevail. And it's relevant, of course, because the Endangered Species Act has spawned many regulations in California, no pun intended, and it has made, for example, the building of new manufacturing facilities very difficult.
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV)'s trademark Dirty Dozen program targets candidates for Congress--regardless of party affiliation--who consistently vote against clean energy and conservation and are running in races in which LCV has a serious chance to affect the outcome. Since 1996, more than 60 percent of the Dirty Dozen have been defeated.