Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich railed against the President Obama’s energy policy on the campaign trail in Nashville, Tennessee, saying as president he would abolish the Energy Department and return to a free market for the industry.
“They don’t like big trucks and big cars,” Gingrich said about the Obama Administration. “I want a system where we have American energy for national security, American energy for jobs…I want you to have the freedom to have the highest quality of life in the world.”
Gingrich has been assiling President Obama for the entire campaign on developing an American energy policy. Gingrich claimed on Monday that if were government to get out of the way, the US could produce enough energy domestically to back away from Middle East producers. But when it came to Obama’s stateside efforts, he described them as solutions for five to ten years from now, not for high gas prices now.
“I believe in biofuels,” Gingrich said about renewables. But he described Solyndra as “A half-billion dollar photo-op.”
“Drilling won’t work, but alge will?” he said sarcastically, referring to a new round of research and development grants for algal biofuels the Energy Department is set to disburse. “Do you know how out of touch you have to be to say that with a straight face?”
