Palin Tells Ohio Crowd She'll Be Working on Energy Policy. Posted by Kate Sheppard, Gristmill, September 17, 2008. "At a rally in Ohio on Tuesday, GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin told the crowed she'd head up energy policy in a McCain administration... [citing] her record of taking on [Big Oil]... as well as her experience lobbying for a natural gas pipeline... But... the pipeline she talks about only exists on paper at this point, and the necessary federal approval is still years away. She's also been called out for exaggerating the role that Alaska plays in the country's energy portfolio, claiming... that the state provides '20 percent' of the nation's power [when] it provides just 3.5%... Palin has certainly taken on Big Oil... at times, imposing new taxes on the industry and dueling with them over the terms of the gas pipeline. But she's also seen as a friend... lobbying for drilling in places like ANWR and criticizing the Bush administration for not being pro-drilling enough... [As far as her ability to make the government more transparent]... a New York Times piece published last weekend revealed a record of secrecy and cronyism in her time as governor... [In addition, Palin claimed that Alaska officials'] decision to list the [polar] bear [as an endangered species] was 'not based on the best scientific and commercial data available'... But emails released via a public-records request show that Alaskan state scientists [in fact] agreed with federal researchers that polar bears are threatened by shrinking ice. The transparency issue is even more relevant to a possible future Palin role in guiding energy policy given the record of [VP Cheney]... Ultimately, the issue wound up before the Supreme Court, where the justices sided with Cheney's assertion that the president and vice president have a right to [craft energy policy] in secret with anyone they want."
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