Speaking at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition event on Saturday were Atlanta businessman Herman Cain; U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann; Texas Gov. Rick Perry; former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich; U.S. Rep. Ron Paul; and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum. About 1,000 people attended the  group’s 11th annual fall banquet at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Tickets were $55.

Cain said if he had to choose one energy-related decision to change, he would have allowed people to decide what light bulbs to use in their homes.

“America believes in choice,” he said. “Green energy is a joke. You ought to be able to pick what light bulbs you want.”

Bachmann called the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve “the most perfect place in the world to drill for oil,” and said “God has given us such a tremendous gift” through the country’s energy resources.

“I want to open up American energy production and be the leader in the world and be the head and not the tail,” Bachmann said.

Bachmann also called for shutting down the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy, saying tasks performed by those agencies should be left to the states. And she said the moratorium on deepwater drilling is worse than the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“The one that has really hurt the economy in the most devastating way is the moratorium that President Obama put on after the oil spill that occurred,” Bachmann said “There was devastation that occurred because of the oil flow that occurred but there was nothing that was worse than the moratorium that he put on.”

Perry went after the deepwater oil drilling moratorium as well, saying it’s the most devastating energy policy from the current administration.

“This president has killed more jobs with his regulatory schemes that have gone forward and that knee-jerk reaction of stopping drilling and that is some of the fastest things that we can turn around with a new president,” he said.

He also called for more domestic energy production and limiting the roll of the EPA, saying he has a plan to make America more energy secure.

“The idea…that we would send hundreds of billions of dollars offshore to countries that are hostile to our future is nonsensical to me,” Perry said.

Gingrich advocated for replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with what he called an environmental solutions center, and said he would make permanent any kind of tax credit for wind and solar energy and continue development of crop-based fuels.

“This is the most anti-American energy administration in history and it’s just unbelievable,” he said.

Paul didn’t call for eliminating the EPA but did say he’d get rid of the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior. And Santorum called for drilling “anywhere we can” and cutting all energy subsidies, saying he believes the ethanol industry can compete on a level playing field.

“There’s either a deliberate attempt by this administration to destroy the energy future of our country or they’re just simply incompetent,” he said.

The paper, “Effects of Climate Change on Wind Energy Availability,” is written by Diandong Ren at the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Geological Sciences. In the abstract of the paper, Ren argues that countries must quickly increase their dependence on renewable energy in order to stem the effects of climate change on wind speeds.

Ren said in the paper:

Reduction of wind power scales with the degree of warming according to a generic power-law relationship. Thus, the earlier we switch to clean energy, and thereby decrease the global climate warming trend, the more cost-effective will be the harnessing of wind energy.

I’ve never heard anything about the effects of climate change on wind. Any scientists out there want to weigh in? Is this legitimate research? Have you read similar things before?

It was mostly bad news for House Democrats who voted for the chamber’s cap-and-trade bill. The two most stinging defeats were Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who worked furiously behind the scenes to secure benefits for his coal-dependent state in the bill before finally giving his “yes” vote, and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), who became somewhat of a celebrity on the left for standing by the more liberal wing of his party on a number of key votes, including cap-and-trade. Boucher, from Virginia’s 9th district, lost to his Republican opponent, Morgan Griffith, and Perriello, despite a big last-minute push by environmentalists and President Obama himself, lost to state Sen. Robert Hurt (R).

Politico ran the numbers this morning. At least 12 freshman Democrats who voted for the cap-and-trade bill lost their re-election bids, while at least seven (I noted Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) last night) won, with some races still too close to call. In total, Politico notes, more than 30 Democrats who voted for the House climate bill fell to their Republican opponents last night.

In the West Virginia Senate race, Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, managed to eke out a victory over Republican John Raese. While Democrats can technically put Manchin in their column, he campaigned against nearly every significant Obama administration policy, including cap-and-trade. In one now-infamous ad, he shot the House climate bill with a shotgun.

But there was some good news for environmentalists last night. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, won her reelection bid against Carly Fiorina. Boxer has always been a strong advocate for environmental protections, but her job is likely to get harder in the next Congress. She has already been accused of unwillingness to reach across the aisle, but with more Republicans in the Senate, she’ll have no choice if she wants to pass energy and climate bills.

At the same time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) survived a tough race against Tea Party darling Sharron Angle. The big question going forward now is what will Reid do on energy and climate legislation next Congress. By now, it’s common knowledge that it will be next to impossible to pass comprehensive climate legislation in the next two years. So it seems Reid will focus on a series of low-hanging-fruit provisions that are popular on both sides of the aisle, including bills to incentivize electric vehicles, improve energy efficiency and weatherize homes.

The fate of two big-ticket items for environmentalists — a renewable energy standard and a much-delayed oil spill response bill — remains unclear. While there’s still time in the lame-duck session to try to pass both provisions, Republicans have more incentive to block the bills until next Congress, as they’ll have more sway later. There is Republican support for an RES, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, but GOP gains in the Senate could make it more likely that Republicans will push to add nuclear power and coal with carbon capture technology to the mix, a nightmare scenario for environmentalists.

It’s even less clear what will happen with the oil spill response bill. More than six months after the massive Gulf oil spill, Congress has yet to pass significant legislation to overhaul offshore drilling (on the regulatory side, the Interior Department has issued its own new drilling rules). A number of contentious issues, like how liable an oil company is for damages from a spill, are sure to take on new significance now that more Republicans are in the Senate.

In other key midterm results, Proposition 23, a California ballot initiative that would suspend the state’s landmark climate change law, failed. It’s a huge win for environmentalists, who funneled millions of dollars into the “No on Prop 23″ campaign, pitting themselves against two Texas oil refiners that campaigned heavily for passage of the initiative. California’s climate law is viewed by environmentalists as the gold standard. Passage of the ballot initiative would have been the icing on the cake of a disappointing year for climate activists.

At the same time, it looks like another California ballot initiative, Proposition 26, will pass. The measure would require a two-thirds majority vote in the state legislature and in local government bodies to impose new fees on industry. Environmentalists say the proposition will make it more difficult to implement key environmental rules, including parts of the state’s climate law. In the last days of midterm election campaigning, as it became clear that Prop 23 would fail, activists’ attention shifted to Prop 26. But it was apparently too late to make a significant difference at the polls.

It’s also worth noting that the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) was defeated last night. Obsertar worked for years to reform pipeline safety and was in the process of developing new legislation to do so in the aftermath of a massive oil pipeline spill in Michigan and a natural gas pipeline explosion in California.

Two other key Senate races remain too close to call this morning. In the Colorado Senate race, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) and Republican Ken Buck are still neck and neck. As I noted yesterday in my midterm preview, the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club have trashed Buck in ads, highlighting his comments questioning whether climate change is man-made. Environmentalists have made Buck the poster child of Republican climate skeptics running this cycle. For his part, Buck’s spokesman said his official position is this: “Ken believes climate change is occurring, but that it’s natural more than man-made.”

Bennet does not support the House version of cap-and-trade, but his campaign said recently that he would support a “well-thought-out, market-based bill.” Buck’s campaign jumped on the comments, saying Bennet’s position on the issue is unclear.

Don’t hold your breath for results of the Alaska Senate race between incumbent and write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), Tea Party favorite Joe Miller (R) and Democrat Scott McAdams. Murkowski appears to be winning, according to early results. Murkowski is the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Though she has opposed cap-and-trade bills in the past, she has a history of working closely with Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the panel’s chairman, on key energy bills, including the comprehensive energy bill they passed in 2009.

The numbers, reported by the American Wind Energy Association, indicate that the third quarter of 2010 was the worst since 2007 for the industry. In total this year, the industry has installed 1,634 megawatts of electric generating capacity, the lowest since 2006.

At the same time, the numbers show that coal outstripped wind in new installed capacity this year. According to an AWEA statement:

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other third-party sources show that wind accounted for 39 percent of new installed capacity in 2009, versus 13 percent from coal; in the first nine months of 2010, however, the ratio flipped, and wind accounted for only 14 percent, versus 39 percent from coal.

AWEA President Densie Bode called on Congress to pass a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar. Though an RES has picked up a number of Republican supporters in the last month, it’s unclear when such a proposal will come up for a vote in the Senate.

Here’s an graph from the report that sums things up nicely:

If this is true (the Times quotes three anonymous sources), it’s a big deal. The move is the latest indication that China isn’t afraid to play hardball with the United States, particularly now that the administration has publicly raised concerns about China’s trade policies. This weekend, Chinese officials denounced U.S. efforts to investigate a series of allegations made by the United Steelworkers that China is breaking WTO rules by offering manufacturers in the country unfair advantages.

China established itself years ago as one of the world's leading producers of solar energy equipment. (Imaginechina/ZUMApress.com)

In a last-ditch effort to build support in the Senate for a comprehensive climate bill this July, President Obama told the White House press corps that a failure to pass the legislation could help cement China’s position as the world clean energy industry leader.

[Environment1] “We can’t stand by as we let China race ahead to create the clean energy jobs and industries of the future,” he said. “We should be developing those renewable energy sources, and creating those high-wage, high-skill jobs right here in the United States of America.”

Conjuring up images of the Cold War, the race metaphor has become a go-to talking point for American politicians during the last year. By all accounts, the United States is getting lapped in the race for the so-called clean energy economy. During the last year or so, the Chinese government has made huge strides in reducing its carbon dioxide emissions and, above all else, making the country a veritable testing ground for research, development and large-scale deployment of wind and solar technology.

The United States, on the other hand, has failed to pass even scaled-back energy and climate change legislation. The Obama administration is betting that there is still hope — that the clean energy race is not yet won and the United States can come out on top.

But some experts say that while competition is essential, the metaphors used to describe our relationship with China on energy and climate change fail to account for a number of nuances, including the fact that the global supply chain makes any one country’s border less clear. In a sense, America and China are more like partners in a relay race, where each country’s advances helps the other get ahead.

Edward Steinfeld, a political economy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the school’s China program, argues that framing the relationship between the United States and other countries as a race is “sort of divorced” from the way technology is developed and deployed. The parts necessary to manufacture a wind turbine, for example, are likely produced all over the country by multinational corporations.

“We’re talking about complicated systems,” he said. “We’re not talking about a shoe. Usually these systems involve constellations of companies, in most cases global companies. In the end, it’s really hard to identify exactly what flag is on any given product.”

Because China has positioned itself as a clean energy leader, many companies are looking to China to conduct necessary research and development. In order to bring costs down, research and development must be done in the location where the product can be deployed on a massive level. Right now, Steinfeld said, that place is China.

But although technologies are fine-tuned in China, they are not always manufactured by Chinese companies. For example, several years ago, as part of a massive effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the country’s rapidly growing industrial sector, the Chinese government declared that all coal plants must install technology that keeps sulfur dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

“Out of nowhere, the world’s biggest market for smoke-stack scrubbers was in China,” Steinfeld said.

Though local technology companies came forward to design the scrubbers, the Chinese government opted to use designs from Europe, Japan and the United States, partly because there was little confidence in the skills of local companies and partly because the foreign technology was more developed, Steinfeld said.

The same thing is now happening with other Chinese policies. The country is looking outside its borders, and foreign companies, including many in the United States, are eager to step up to the plate.

“If you’re an American company, of course you’re going to go to China,” Steinfeld says. “Where else are you going to go? You need to team up with the people that are going to let you develop the technology.”

Because companies are able to use China as a testing ground for their clean energy technologies, the price of solar panels and wind turbines has gone down.

“I think the most tangible impact of China’s energy policies is that we’re now buying not just wind turbines, but solar panels from China,” said Sierra Club Director of International Climate Policy John Coequyt, “and the price of those products is very competitive.”

Therein lies the problem for many in the Obama administration and elsewhere. Though in some ways it’s good that Chinese development has made the cost of parts for wind turbines and solar panels cheaper, it makes it much more difficult to develop a domestic clean energy manufacturing base here in the United States.

The United Steelworkers, in a September petition to the Obama administration, argue that China is unfairly subsidizing exports to encourage companies in the country to send their clean energy products around the world. At the same time, the union accuses China of limiting the exports of certain rare-earth minerals necessary to produce solar panels so that foreign companies will settle in the country.

Both of these charges would be violations of international trading rules, and the United Steelworkers are hoping that the Obama administration will raise the issue in front of the World Trade Organization. “I do think they will take up some of this because some of it is so obvious,” said Linda Andros, legislative counsel on trade law issues at the United Steelworkers. “They don’t have to. They have discretion. But on the merits the case is there. The blatant stuff you’ve just got to take up.”

But some experts argue that regardless of whether the United States can compete with China on clean energy manufacturing, expanding U.S. reliance on wind and solar will create local jobs that can’t be exported to China.

Lutz Weischer, research analyst at the World Resources Institute, says many solar facilities create a significant number of local, American jobs. “If you look at job creation in the solar industry, most jobs are in construction, installation and maintenance,” he said. “Those jobs have to be local. If you import panels that are cheap, you’re able to install more panels and create more local jobs.”

“That’s the thing you have to weigh. It’s pretty likely that you’ll have less manufacturing jobs in the United States,” he said. “But you have to look at the entire supply chain. You’re gaining jobs elsewhere.”

Weischer also says that Chinese manufacturing has helped to lower the cost of solar panels, which fell in price by some 40 percent in 2009 as compared to 2008. “Even though this decline has a number of reasons — including technological progress, less demand due to the recession and changing policies in Spain, etc. — it would not have been possible without China producing large quantities of low-cost modules,” said Weischer.

The Chinese market is also important because it often functions as a “laboratory” to test new technology. Because the United States has lagged behind other countries in developing a stable investment environment for the wind industry, for example, General Electric has focused much of its attention on China. It recently announced a partnership with Harbin Power Equipment, a Chinese company, to expand its presence in the country, which currently has the largest wind market in the world.

For these reasons, Weischer says the race metaphor might not work for the relationship between China and the United States on clean energy. “The problem with the race image is that it suggests that only one country can win,” he says. “But if you look at wind, every country that has decided to focus on wind has won. You win if you decide to play.”

Like other experts, Barbara Finamore, China Program Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the clean energy race metaphor oversimplifies the way global supply chains work. “Race is not necessarily the right term here,” she says. “Because of the way supply chains are interconnected, you can’t win the clean energy race by banning technologies from other countries or by banning investment because it hurts U.S. companies.”

There are a number of examples of Chinese companies coming to the United States and creating jobs for American workers. Suntech, a Chinese solar company, began production this month at a solar manufacturing facility in Arizona, the first in the country. The facility will create almost 100 American manufacturing jobs.

At the same time, despite initial resistance, the United Steelworkers signed an agreement in August with A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese company, to allow the construction of a wind power plant in Texas and a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Nevada. Despite the fact that the company is Chinese, the thinking goes, the jobs created will be American.

Finamore says there are a number of reasons that China is eclipsing the United States in terms of its clean energy development. But at the end of the day, the main reason is because the United States has not enacted policies that create a stable investment climate.

“The countries that establish strong national policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize renewable energy are the ones that are establishing strong positions in the clean energy economy,” she said.

In a statement, Bingaman said:

We must continue to ensure that the Tax Code contains well-designed incentives that will help us transition to an energy efficient economy. Our bill will significantly expand domestic clean energy manufacturing; help American businesses and families reduce their energy use and dependence on fossil fuels; and create thousands of jobs.  This is a common-sense, bipartisan proposal that deserves priority consideration.

Here’s a summary of the bill’s provisions.

I wonder if we can shift gears a bit and talk about coal for a few minutes. Obviously, if an RES goes into effect, then the country will have a mandate to produce at least some of our electricity from renewable sources. It seems that wind is the leading renewable right now. But as we depend more and more on wind, it seems like we’re going to have to build more and more electric lines, or electric transmission, to move that wind from one side of the country to the other. Right now, it seems like we’ll be moving it from the Midwest to the East Coast, where offshore wind hasn’t quite flourished yet. What kind of transmission investment do you think might come along with an RES?

We have done a fair amount of work on transmission from a couple of different perspectives. We’re certainly looking to reduce our dependence on coal in every aspect of that. So, one part of that fight is to stop transmission lines that will carry new coal to ratepayers. In the Southwest, we’re doing a lot of work in terms of transmission for solar.

But as far as transmission with wind, we want to make sure that a long-term transmission plan is developed that incorporates data that shows we’re reducing out dependence on coal. As we do that, transmission capacity will be freed up. We want to make sure that long-term investments in the electric grid are made so that there’s a decreased reliance on coal and an increased reliance on distributed power. If the context is broad enough to include those two items, then we’d consider supporting new transmission to make sure that clean energy is being brought to consumers from where it’s generated.

From a broader perspective, we support conservation and big investments in efficiency to reduce the growth in energy demand. We want to see the grid cleaned up so that we’re significantly reducing the amount of coal that’s being generated and natural gas to a certain point and there’s a corresponding increase in both wind and small-scale solar. And so investments in wind should be made with all of those things in mind, as opposed to adding more capacity again and again. Then there’s a separate set of factors regarding where transmission lines should be established that also guides out thinking.

What about offshore wind? Where do you see offshore wind in the next 20 or 30 years?

We expect it to grow significantly. Before the environmental impact studies have been assessed, we’re conceptually very in favor of it. We’re also quite intrigued by the idea of establishing a  large-scale backbone so that some of these individual wind farms can be connected to an offshore grid that can run power up and down the coast.

The letter comes in the midst of a broad lobbying effort by renewable energy advocates to pass this year an RES, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources, like wind and solar. The American Wind Energy Association is planning a week full of events on the RES this week, including running television ads in support of the provision.

The governors — the chairman and the vice chairman of the group, which includes 28 governors as members — also penned an op-ed on the topic in Politico today:

The letter was also sent to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The question going forward is this: Will BP ever be able to shake its image as the responsible party for the country’s largest oil spill? Beginning in 2000, BP spent millions to cultivate an image as an eco-conscious company, changing it’s name from British Petroleum to BP and taking on a new logo meant to conjure up images of clean energy. Their slogan became Beyond Petroleum.

Even before the oil spill, many dismissed the rebranding as an effort to hide BP’s identity as an oil company. Now, in the aftermath of the oil spill with hundreds of thousands still recovering in the Gulf, it seems that the company’s efforts to trumpet its renewable energy projects will fall on deaf ears.