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Padgett’s Energy 2.0
Posted By katie allison granju
Democratic candidate for Senate Mike Padgett has released his own energy plan today:
n the wake of Lamar Alexander’s speech this morning announcing a new “Manhattan Project” for energy independence, one of Alexander’s Democratic opponents, former Knox County Clerk Mike Padgett, has released his own plan called “Energy 2.0.”
Like Alexander, Padgett discusses expanding the use of nuclear power and finding ways to burn coal cleaner. Absent in Padgett’s 10 point plan, however, there is in depth discussion of and heavy reliance on plug-in cars.
Padgett, always the populist, calls for Detroit to build more efficient hybrid vehicles. “We know electric-hybrid technology can reach in the neighborhood of 48 mpg already. In the nation that produced Henry Ford and Bill Gates, we can find a way.”
Padgett also calls for using the tax code to reward energy innovators and punish those wedded to the old ways, “Eliminate the $17 billion in tax breaks previously given to Big Oil companies and set those tax dollars aside in a trust fund to invest in renewable and efficient energy. Levy a windfall profit tax on the oil industry to help fill the trust fund.”
Padgett plan also calls for companies to buy pollutions credits so that polluters can pay for developing more renewables and making them “part of the power
grid.”
May 9th, 2008
