Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney granted an interview to technology blogger Michael Arrington of TechCrunch today. They discussed a few tech policy topics, including tech growth policies, Internet taxes, H-1B visas for high-skilled workers, venture-capital tax issues and renewable energy.
You can read the transcript at TechCrunch or listen to the interview.
Former Vice President Al Gore has drawn hordes of attention to concerns about global warming this year, what with his Academy Award for the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and his recent share of the Nobel Peace Prize for his focus on climate change. But Gore’s views on the subject have not gone unchallenged.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has been one of Gore’s chief critics over the past year, and today he delivered a two-hour speech on the Senate floor to challenge some of the research underlying conclusions about global warming as a threat to Earth. His staff on the Environment and Public Works Committee, where Inhofe is the top Republican, captured parts of the speech in shorter video clips and posted them to YouTube.
The videos are the latest in a series that capture Inhofe’s kickback against Gore and other advocates of government intervention to counteract global warming. You can see the others at his YouTube page.
President Bush today signed an executive order aimed at preventing the overfishing of two popular sportfish, the striped bass and red drum. He signed the order in St. Michael’s, Md., before beginning his own fishing trip.
“Striped bass range from the St. Lawrence River in Canada to the St. John’s River in Florida. … In the old days you could catch them up to 55 to 70 pounds pretty easily,” Bush said. “And what we’re trying to do is to make sure that the old days come back; that the striper is plentiful and that you can catch some good-sized ones, too — nothing like catching a big striper.”
Of the red drum, he added that previous federal and state efforts have proved insufficient at helping the species recover. “In the waters from North Carolina to the tip of Florida, the numbers are still too low,” Bush said. “And in parts of our gulf, we’re not sure of their status. So if you’re not sure of the status, we ought to be taking special precaution.”
Bush also made a stop at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland to discuss his efforts to protect migratory birds — the same topics he addressed in his weekly radio address before beginning his trip.
“My administration has supported the National Wildlife Refuge system. We’ve expanded some of the existing sites, we created 10 new ones, and we restored and improved hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat for migratory birds,” he said. “In other words, we recognize the refuge system is an important part of preserving our bird populations. And we’ve set a goal that by the time I leave office we will improve another 200,000 acres.”
Before heading off to the Chesapeake Bay on a weekend fishing trip, President Bush outlined some of his environmental initiatives, including efforts to preserve fisheries, clean America’s waters and help save “two of our nation’s most popular recreational fish — striped bass and red drum.”
“We believe that to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century, we must bring together conservationists, fishermen, sportsmen, local leaders, and federal, state, and tribal officials in a spirit of cooperation,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “I call this ‘cooperative conservation.’ Instead of the old environmental debates that pit one group against another, we’re moving our country toward a system where citizens and government can come together to achieve meaningful results for our environment.”
The initiatives Bush mentioned included:
An “ocean action plan” to make waters cleaner, healthier and more productive;
The marine conservation area he established last year in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands;
A new law to end overfishing of certain species and an executive order to ban the commercial sale of striped bass and red drum caught in federal waters;
Expanding and creating national wildlife refuges, coordinating with government and private entities to protect private land, and building stopover habitats in urban areas in order to protect migratory birds;
And the National Parks Centennial Initiative, a public-private partnership to raise funds for the park system’s 100th anniversary in 2016.
Democrats, meanwhile, gave their air time this week to Jennifer Howse, president of the March of Dimes Foundation, to make the case yetagain for legislation to reauthorize and expand the State Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP. Howse said arguments that the bill, which Bush successfully vetoed, would expand “government-run health care” are “an unfortunate misconception.”
“In fact, 77 percent of current CHIP enrollees are covered by private managed care health plans that contract with states,” she said. “In addition, the CHIP Reauthorization Act will provide states with more opportunities to use CHIP dollars to help purchase private coverage.”
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson points voters to his presidential campaign site for details on his energy plan because “a 30-second TV ad isn’t enough time” to sketch his map to clean energy.
In a previous ad, Richardson also touted his work toward clean energy in New Mexico as evidence of what he could do on that front as president.
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