Tancredo on the Issues

Update: Tom Tancredo dropped out of the presidential race on Dec. 20, 2007.

Environmental and energy issues don't seem to be top priorities for Republican presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo. He rarely mentions them on the stump and he doesn't highlight them on his campaign website. When he does talk about his vision for America's energy system, he calls for reliance on the free market rather than regulation, and -- like everyone else -- stresses the importance of reducing U.S. consumption of foreign oil. His lifetime voting score from the League of Conservation Voters is 11 percent.

Read an interview with Tom Tancredo by Grist and Outside.

Key Points

• Says Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is the last book of fiction he's read.
  
  
• Says global warming appears to be happening, but argues that the jury is still out on whether human activity is responsible. "There's plenty of reliable research on both sides," he says.
  
  
• Opposes a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
  
  
• Supports expansion of nuclear power, as well as storage of nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada.
  
  
• Supports continued use of coal as an energy source, including liquefied coal.
  
  
• Supports oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore in U.S. waters.
  
  
• Calls for decreasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
  
  

Video & Audio

Watch Tancredo discuss climate change and energy at a town hall meeting in Littleton, N.H., on June 23, 2007:




Watch Tancredo answer a question about climate change at a Republican debate on May 15, 2007:




Watch Tancredo speak about his support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:




Listen to a clip of Tancredo's interview with Grist and Outside:

Quotable quotes

• "Global warming: is it happening? I would say that most evidence suggests that it is. What's the cause? Most evidence does not substantiate the claim that it is caused by human activity, or at least to the extent that it would change things one way or the other if we started doing things quite differently ... It's almost audacious of us to think that we can change this path with our activities on this planet."
  
  -- June 23, 2007, during a town hall meeting in Littleton, N.H.
  
  
  
• "I don't know whether we, the human race, are responsible for global warming. It certainly could be happening, it certainly could be a natural phenomenon. If it's the latter, of course there isn't much we can do about it. If it's the former, there is something we can do about it, and that's to reduce our dependency on petroleum products. If we do that, we automatically reduce the carbon emissions that people claim are causing global warming."
  
  -- May 15, 2007, at a Republican presidential debate
  
  
  
• "I believe that we should drill in [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge]. I believe that we should drill off of the coast. I believe that we should do everything possible to increase the supply of petroleum products to the United States that will help us reduce our reliance on foreign countries."
  
  -- in a video posted on Tancredo's blog
  
  
  

Platform & Record In-Depth

• Cosponsored the Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act of 2007, which would provide loan guarantees, tax benefits, and other incentives for liquefied coal.
  
  
• Cosponsored legislation in 2007 and 2006 that would lift the moratorium on offshore drilling in U.S. waters.
  
  
• Voted in 2005 against raising auto fuel-economy standards to 33 miles per gallons by 2015. Voted in 2001 against raising fuel-economy standards to a combined average for cars and trucks of 27.5 miles per gallon by 2007.
  
  
• Cosponsored and voted for Rep. Richard Pombo's (R-Calif.) 2005 overhaul of the Endangered Species Act, which was opposed by enviros. The bill passed the House but was never voted on in the Senate.
  
  
• Voted in favor of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, a sweeping, oil-friendly energy bill opposed by enviros. The act passed and Bush signed it into law in August 2005.
  
  
• Cosponsored legislation in 2005 that would have amended the Clean Air Act to require all gasoline sold in the U.S. contain at least 10 percent renewable fuel.
  
  
• Cosponsored legislation in 2005 to accelerate timber removal after catastrophic events such as hurricanes and tornadoes.
  
  
• Voted for the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, a logging-heavy bill opposed by enviros that was signed into law by President Bush in December 2003.
  
  
• Wants to limit agriculture subsidies and make the U.S. farm economy more market-oriented.
  
  
• In 2002, voted to store nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain repository now being built in southern Nevada.
  
  

Still Haven't Gotten Enough?

• Read about Tancredo's agriculture philosophy [PDF].
  
  
• Read Tancredo's official bio.
  
  

What did we miss? Tell us below in comments. We'll update this page as the presidential campaign continues.


Todd Hymas Samkara contributed to this fact sheet.