Clinton Talks Carbon Sequestration, Energy Pipeline in Wyoming

By Brodie Farquhar, 3-07-08

Showing up more than an hour late to her Casper, Wyoming rally, Senator Hillary Clinton apologized to the audience standing in a single-court gymnasium at Casper College. She had started the morning in Mississippi and had a good rally earlier in the day in Cheyenne at Laramie County Community College.

“It took a little longer than anticipated,” she said.

At roughly the same time that Senator Barack Obama was speaking to some 10,000 people at the University of Wyoming’s Arena-Auditorium in Laramie, Sen. Clinton was speaking to about 1,000 people, jammed into the basketball court, standing room only. Some members of the audience had been standing in line outside, starting at 4:30 p.m., before getting into the gymnasium around 5:30 p.m.  With no chairs available, the audience was encouraged to surround a raised stage where Clinton appeared shortly after 7:30 p.m.

Clinton ripped the job done in the past seven years by the Bush administration, noting that the nation had 319 days to go before repairs could start on the nation’s economy and international reputation.

She focused on the nation’s energy needs, saying five million jobs could be created with a national commitment to renewable energy. “We can produce oil and gas and still protect the environment,” she declared, then praised the Wyoming Legislature and governor for approving bills that make the Cowboy State first in the nation at setting up a regulatory framework for the carbon sequestration.

“I want 10 demonstration projects in the country and one of them should be in Wyoming,” she said to a roar of approval.

Clinton also said a massive power grid of transmission lines needs to be built, so California can draw on wind energy power generated in Wyoming.

Chiding the Bush administration for the rise in oil to $104 per barrel and warning of $4 per gallon gas this summer, Clinton said “I won’t hold hands with the Saudis. I’ve had enough and I’m tired of being over their barrel.”

Sen. Clinton said quality health care should be available to all, citing the tragedy of a small-town waitress who got pregnant and started having medical problems. Each trip to the hospital was met with a “We can’t help you” unless she had $100, Clinton said of the waitress. Finally, the waitress came to the hospital in an ambulance, lost her baby and after 15 days of heroic medical efforts, lost her life.

Clinton called the two deaths morally wrong and economically stupid, since several hundred thousand dollars were spent in a losing effort at the end.

Sen. Clinton promised that under her administration, medical costs would be lowered to six percent of a families’ income, with a strong emphasis on preventative care and the Congressional health plan available to all.
Moving on to education, Clinton promised to scrap No Child Left Behind (to rousing cheers) and to make college affordable with tax breaks and taking on predatory loan companies. Young people willing to do national service could receive $10,000 a year – more than the $4,000 a year offered by Obama.

Asking how many people in the audience carried college debt, Clinton stepped back from a forest of arms, then said educational debt should be forgiven for key public service jobs.

In a veiled jab at Obama’s talk of bringing people together, Clinton was openly skeptical that special interests getting special deals from the Bush administration would be interested in talking about losing those special deals.

“You need a fighter in the White House,” Clinton declared, saying she’d get rid of special deals for the special interests, restore the nation’s international and moral authority and end the war in Iraq, while winning the war in Afghanistan. She said the nation’s soldiers had done all that was asked of them in Iraq, but there is no military solution there.

Referring to the state caucus on Saturday, Clinton asked for the help of supporters, at the caucus and down the road when as the Democratic candidate, she would go toe-to-toe with Sen. John McCain.