Environmental Polices of the Democrat and Republican Party

Both Democrat and Republican Party platforms include a plan for providing the United States with a better environment and energy reform. This means that not one party is against improvement and the other for it; but, that they are nonpartisan.

Nonetheless, one party seems to favor more government funding for environmental changes: the Democratic Party. The party stresses the necessity of the government to advocate investing in areas that can provide the nation with a cleaner and more independent energy source. They emphasize that the United States needs to become self reliant, decreasing it’s dependence on other foreign energy sources (oil). With this agenda, the Democrats are attempting to invest money into finding alternate means of transportation and energy resources. The  party has invested in the creation of rail and battery fueled transportation. They also plan to invest government resources into finding other sources of energy (for an example, wind and solar energy). They state that by doing this, the economy of the United States will also prosper because the process will require labor to provide services. Industries will need to be created and “a new generation of professionals” will be required to research, create, and build solar panels and wind turbines. Even though the jobs will be short term, it will eventually improve the United States’s economy because the nation will no longer have to rely on foreign countries to supply energy.

On the other side of the spectrum, the Republicans also lean towards a better and cleaner environment, however they do not support the idea of enforcing taxes on business and families for funding these changes. Like, the Democrats, they too think that the United States should become energy independent. However, besides solar and wind power, the Republicans have also opted for nuclear power, clean coal, geothermal, and even hydropower for energy. They also approve of off short drilling for oil, so that they country does not have to rely on foreign neighbors for fuel. However, they only approve of this move, if the government can afford to drill responsibly (which, in regards to the BP Oil spill, the Democrats are funding the restoration of). This step is a dramatic step forward for the Republican Party. Before 2008, the party’s platform did not include a plan as environmentally devoted, as they do currently, in regard to climate change. As a whole, the party did not fully support the claim of global warming. However, with the past two years, the party has provided a more elaborated agenda for environmental changes, which they still uphold today. They are promoting an increase in government incentives for businesses to become cleaner. They opt for this option instead of taxing, because they believe that it is the only way for businesses to remain in business and allow the government to neutralize environmental problems at the same time.

Overall, as stated before, both parties are environmentally friendly. Both want to propel the nation into the 21^st century by decreasing pollution and finding alternate resources of energy. 

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