MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Keystone XL Pipeline
Interview
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SCHULTZ: Investors or concern Iraqi oil production could be affected if militants move the conflict to Southern Iraq. Meanwhile, positive movement in the alternative energy took the spotlight in Germany. Germany produced a record 50 percent of its electricity needs through solar panels for full day on June 9th earlier this month. In start contrast solar power makes up only 2.2 percent of total energy production in the United States. The U.S. is falling far behind on alternative energy.
However we`re still pump in that oil. North Dakota joined the big leagues of the crude oil production this week. The state now produces one million barrels of oil per day, second only to the state of Texas. In South Dakota, the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline could be delayed again. The permit TransCanada that needs to build in the state expires one week. That would be on June 29. The application process will open the door for another public comment period and could lead to another hearing. This is a good thing. Land donors and Native Americans should keep speaking up against that pipeline.
We still don`t know when the President or the administration is going to be making a decision on this but the permits have to in place and of course the legal battle continues in Nebraska. Senator Shelton Whitehouse joins us tonight here on the ED Show.
Senator, good to have you with us. I`d like to focus in first on Germany. How can they have it so right and proved to the world how it can be done and yet we have it so wrong when it comes to alternative energy. What do you think?
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, (D) RHODE ISLAND: Well, I think the difference is that in Germany they are pulling together and in the United States we have big polluters and big coal and oil interest and big utilities who are trying to knock down the effort to move toward solar and wind, another renewable forms of powers. So it`s a different political environment and it sure does play out in the difference you`ve described. Germany shows what we`re capable of though, if we`d simple got ourselves organized.
SCHULTZ: Polarity -- popularity should I say of the solar panels on roof tops in Germany has really changed things and of course they do subsidies. Do you think we should go down that road here in the United States to make it a successful campaign because that would of course unties a lot of consumers?
WHITEHOUSE: Yes. I think we should -- I think there`re actually a lot of areas where installed solar is competitive with grid power at the plug but you don`t get support from the local utilities in many cases for net metering so do your flow back to the grid credits you and they can make it very difficult with the installation. So if you have an electric utility that sort of fighting back against you, then you got a real problem on your hands.
I just drove down the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, North Florida and go down those coastal highways and we see those relatively flat roofed houses out there baking in the sun and you don`t see a solar panel of miles. And you`re a lot better off with solar in South Carolina than you are with solar in Georgia.
SCHULTZ: Senator, earlier this week there was a senate hearing to examine climate change. Are the Republicans finally starting to at least listen to this?
WHITEHOUSE: Yes. I think they are. I don`t think the Republican response in my hearing in the environment of public works committee was representative of where are the Republican caucus is on this. They send their biggest deniers and the biggest opponents of a renewable power and of doing something about climate change to that Environment Public Works Committee. But I would have - they`re probably close to a dozen senators who have in the past or are willing to do something about climate change.
I think it`s just the question of getting them the political space to move. And if there`s one kind of key point that I think people should take away from this, is that we lost all those Republican senators who are willing to work on climate change when Citizens United was decided. When Citizens United was decided, all that lose money that float in the politics, a lot of it went to work, carpet bombing and battering people in Republican primaries.
I`ve had Republican colleague say to me, "Shelton, why are you complaining about these guys. They`ve clobbered me worst." And that has really shutdown what should`ve been a good bipartisan discussion. Don`t believe that Citizens United added to speech, it has shut it down with a lot of bullying and political intimidation.
SCHULTZ: All right. Sen. Shelton Whitehouse great to have you with us on this subject tonight on the ED Show. We`ll have you back talking more about it. It is going to be the issue in the next few years, no doubt.
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