Saturday, August 23, 2003
Dean pushes energy ideas
By ALBERT McKEON Telegraph Staff
mckeona@telegraph-nh.com
Staff photo by Don Himsel
Democratic presidential hopeful, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, talks with GT Equipment President Kedar Gupta at the company’s offices in Merrimack on Friday morning. Dean met with employees, learned about their products and discussed alternative energy during the campaign event.
MERRIMACK – Howard Dean seemed as if he had walked into heaven.
The Democratic presidential candidate talked shop Friday with the people behind GT Equipment Technologies Inc. The small business makes, among other things, equipment for solar-powered systems.
Dean more than listened to company executives. He exchanged facts and ideas about their industry, segueing into his pitch for the United States to rely less on oil and more on renewable energy sources.
“Our fossil fuel money goes to the Saudis and supports terrorism,” he said.
U.S. funding for Middle Eastern oil subsidizes terrorists with Saudi, Iranian and Syrian ties, Dean said. The Bush administration’s reluctance to break from oil and its hesitance to explore renewable energy hurts the United States in many ways, especially environmentally, he said.
The former Vermont governor used the company tour to tout his vision for a national energy plan. The United States should invest in and heavily promote renewable energy, he said outside the facility at a brief press conference.
First, every state should have net metering, Dean said. Under this approach, excess electricity produced by a home or business is moved to a renewable energy generator, like a wind turbine, and eventually will spin the electricity meter backward. Basically, it saves electricity until needed by the customer.
Dean said deregulation of electric companies would help only in the short term. And tax incentives to companies in the renewable energy market would promote a change in U.S. energy strategy, he said.
Dean seemed engaged in his tour of the company, telling company co-founder and President Kedar Gupta: “Maybe you’ll get a sale out of me. We have passive solar in my house.”
He sat at a large table in a board room while Gupta outlined the company’s history and ideals for the future. Gupta spoke of his creed: “Start with a dream, work hard, get lucky, work harder.”
GT Equipment Technologies employs about 60 people, although many were on vacation for Dean’s tour. Dean credited the company and said it speaks for how small businesses will create jobs faster than large corporations.
He touched upon health, telling an employee that genetically engineered foods should carry a label, but the government should not push it wholly. He also briefly detailed his ambitious health-care plan, including having all children younger than 18 covered medically.
Dean, who has raised more money than any other Democratic candidate, told an employee that because he has raised a significant amount of funding through small donations, his administration would not be beholden to special interest groups.
For GT employee Alan Guidice, the Democratic field is “wide open.” Dean has done very well so far, including his stated stance on energy, but it’s “too early” to tell who will emerge as the best candidate in the party, said Guidice, an independent voter.
On Thursday, Dean criticized Bush’s record on the environment during a visit to the polluted site of the former Mohawk Tannery in Nashua.
Albert McKeon can be reached at 594-5832
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