On May 20th, I interviewed U.S. House candidate John Carney on energy and the environment, for my internet radio show at the University of Delaware. You can listen to the full show here (mp3).
Full Disclosure: I worked as an intern on John Carney's House campaign from February through May this year. This interview was conducted through my show at the university, and the campaign and Mr. Carney were only told the overall topic in advance. Since John Carney has been vocally opposing offshore oil drilling off Delaware (and the other areas the President plans to open), I feel this interview somewhat qualifies as "earned media" attention, especially in light of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. The campaign has authorized me to publicize the interview here, although I no longer work there and they have not read this ahead of time.
John Carney is the Democratic former Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (2001-2009), and this year he's running for Delaware's lone House seat in Washington, currently held by Republican Rep. Mike Castle (R), who is running for U.S. Senate. Mr. Carney has spent his time in the private sector after he left office working on an investment project to bring offshore wind to Delaware. Energy policy is his favorite topic, and previously on the show I have extensively covered energy and environmental policy. Therefore, I took the opportunity on my final show of the spring semester to interview him in-depth on those subjects.
Not to flatter myself, but I think this is probably a fairly unusual opportunity to hear a top federal candidate expounding, in great detail, his views on energy and particularly environmental issues, so I hope I'm providing a good service for this community (i.e. progressives in general and eco-bloggers specifically, on DailyKos), as well as illuminating his views for Delawareans. I mentioned our own A Siegel at one point in the interview, too, since he had been a guest on the show previously (mp3).
I've broken the interview into three parts to post the audio to YouTube and include below (because YouTube limits clips to 10 minutes each). I apologize for not having a transcript for those who can't listen, since the running time is close to 28 minutes in total. But here's a summary of what I asked about:
Clip 1:
- Offshore oil and the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
- Electricity and the future of coal
- The myth of clean coal
- Mountaintop removal mining
Clip 2:
- Clean energy transition as an investment for the future, not a burden now
- What can U.S. and states do to promote clean energy development in the USA, not in other countries?
- Green jobs in Delaware
- Urban and rural benefits of a clean energy revolution
Clip 3:
- Electric cars, Delaware, and automobile carbon emissions
- Public transit in Delaware
- Amtrak
- Climate legislation
If you have any questions or reactions, I would love to hear them in the comments, and I will be sure to respond. The campaign will probably also be reading this at some point, but I'll be answering for myself, and not on their behalf. Thanks for listening.
On the web: John Carney for Congress. Note: the oil & gas opposition petition will come up first, at the moment. John Carney is facing some self-funding Republican opponents, most of whom have been strong proponents of increased domestic oil and gas production ('drill, baby, drill' types). If he wins, he'll be a strong advocate for moving the United States toward a clean energy future. If the Republican nominee wins...it's a vote for the past, at best, and a vote for more environmental damage, in most scenarios. Even after the Deepwater Horizon disaster was underway, they were still campaigning on more oil and gas and claiming it was safe.
You can also find the diary on my other interview that show, with Delaware US Senate candidate Chris Coons here.