Whitman, Poizner Rapidly Backtracking From Prior Pro-Environment Ideas In CA Primary Race - SacBee

[hatrack]

Published: Sunday, May. 2, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A

Steve Poizner in 2004 vowed to pursue a ban on offshore oil drilling and wanted to reduce greenhouse gases. He boasted about signing up to buy a hybrid car. Meg Whitman in 2008 joined an elite group of leaders on a global warming tour of Norwegian Arctic waters. She launched an initiative to reduce electronic waste as head of eBay and donated $300,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund.

Both Republican gubernatorial candidates have supported environmental causes before. But in their appeal to conservative voters this year, they have made environmental concerns subordinate to the state's struggling economy. Poizner, now state insurance commissioner, has moved farthest from his environmental past in an all-out effort to win conservative votes. Whitman has issued more nuanced views – leaving herself room to win general election votes in environmentally minded California. The winner of the GOP primary must face Democrat Jerry Brown, the attorney general and former governor whom environmentalists say has a solid record on their issues.

As a 2004 Assembly candidate in a Democratic-leaning Bay Area district, Poizner not only advocated a permanent ban on offshore oil drilling in California but said the federal government should buy back existing oil leases to preserve the ecosystem. He now supports more oil drilling from existing offshore platforms.

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Whitman has laid out her green platform in a policy paper titled "Protecting the Environment." She supports efforts by Schwarzenegger and Democrats to require that California obtain 33 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Many of her environmental positions provide leeway should she win office, said Bill Magavern of Sierra Club California. "A lot of them are couched in vague language that sounds good," Magavern said. "She says she'll modernize the California Environmental Quality Act, but that could be a way to tell developers that she'll make it easier to build projects." Poizner, in contrast, does not have a separate environmental section on his campaign website and accused Whitman of practicing "environmental extremism" in a new television ad.

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http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/02/2720665/poizner-whitman-environmental.html

[goclark]

1. I want both of them off of my TV

When is Jerry Brown going to be visible?

I love Jerry Brown.

[movonne]

2. I love jerry brown also...and hope he wins...

[Merlot]

3. I'm thinking he's letting them destroy each other and spend all their money

(not that meg-bay will EVER run out of money). They are doing a lot of mud slinging and he can afford to wait and see who he'll actually be running against.

Also, he's still got his full time job as Atty General.

Ya, I love him too. When his campaign gets into full swing, I may volunteer.

[XemaSab]

5. They're fighting the primary battle

and I'm enjoying every minute. :D

[glitch]

4. That's the only way they can win the nomination from their batshit supporters.

And this in the time of the worst oil spill in history (wait for it, as they keep uping the output by 5x every other day). Utter rapacious fools.
I agree with the above poster, Brown is letting them take each other out.