Palin on Energy: Oil, Natural Gas, Solar

Palin has praised Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama for advocating more oil and gas production in Alaska in his energy plan. The same plan has received some praise from T. Boone Pickens, an oilman who has become a big natural wind and energy champion.

Pickens has become a celebrity of the national energy policy debate by launching an aggressive media campaign to promote his views.

Before becoming the governor, Palin was a councilwoman and then mayor of Wasilla, near Anchorage. She ran for lieutenant governor in 2002 but was unsuccessful.

She served on the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission, but resigned after a year to protest what she said were ethical violations by fellow commissioner Republican state chairman, Randy Ruedrich. Ruedrich later agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking state ethics laws by conducting Republican party business in his office and providing confidential legal documents to a lobbyist.

But Palin also has been under scrutiny for a potential ethics violation. The Republican-controlled Legislature has launched an investigation into an allegation that she fired the state's public safety commissioner because he refused to dismiss her former brother-in-law, a state trooper who went through a contentious divorce with her sister.

Will picking Palin draw a sharper divide between McCain and the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama?

Both presidential candidates have said they would support funding for renewable energy, biofuels, electric cars and a program to cap carbon-dioxide emissions and allow companies to trade emissions allowances.

Federal, state and local Republican and Democratic lawmakers, along with scientists and entrepreneurs, met in Las Vegas earlier this month to discuss energy policies. The goal was to produce an agenda that both parties would support, since many attempts by Congress to pass a new energy bill have failed this year (see "Summit Produces Clean-Energy Agenda" on greentechmedia.com).

Palin has far less political experience than Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Obama's running mate. After three decades in the Senate, Biden has built a reputation for his strong support of renewable energy and other green technologies (see "10 Things to Know About Biden and Energy" on earth2tech.com).

Don't miss John Fout's take on Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Palin Unleashes Small-Town Power.