Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton plans to deliver two policy speeches in Iowa this week outlining her views on climate change and the energy crisis. This past weekend during an interview with Radio Iowa, Clinton said the U.S. should generate much more electricity from alternative sources like wind turbines.

"But when I look at other countries that are availing themselves of wind (power) and thereby reducing their dependence on foreign oil and the amount of money that they send out of their country to regimes that may not be friendly to them, I don’t see why we’re not doing more," Clinton said. "We’re not because we don’t have any leadership. We’re not organized to. We haven’t done the public education around it, but I’m going to be laying out a very comprehensive approach as to how I think we could."

Clinton is scheduled to visit a wind turbine plant in Cedar Rapids later this mornng and she’ll speak in Newton tomorrow about renewable energy.

Clinton arrived in Iowa on Saturday, just as rival Barack Obama and some of his supporters were calling upon her to release more of the documents from her time as First Lady. Clinton told Radio Iowa the papers are being released as quickly as possible and aren’t under her control or her husband’s. According to Clinton, it’s up to the National Archives staff, which she said must go through every one of the 100 million pages of documents from Bill Clinton’s presidency, as well as the 20 million email messages.

"It’s like people think we have boxes of records in our basement and why don’t I just go and get them and hand them over and you know my husband has never blocked a record ever. He has been the most forthcoming of all presidents and as a matter of fact when President Bush said, ‘I want to stop all these papers from being released,’ Bill said, ‘That’s not how we’re going to do it,’" Clinton said. "It’s moving as rapidly as that process moves and Bill and I have said, ‘Move as rapidly as you can move,’ but the fact is they have to do it in a certain order and they have to follow their process."

It appears that in January, the National Archives will release some of Clinton’s schedules from her time as First Lady. "We’ve already released, I believe, about a million pages and it’s released as soon as it possibly can be and my understanding — again, I’ve not seen anything. I don’t know anything about it and it’s up to the Archives and that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned," Clinton told Radio Iowa.

On Saturday evening, Clinton rallied with about 200 Iowa members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union. AFSCME endorsed Clinton last week.  "I want to turn the lights on this country. I want people to see what’s going on," Clinton told the crowd. "I want everybody to understand that this is one of the most important elections in our country’s history. There is so much at stake," Clinton said.

After her 10:30 a.m. speech in Cedar Rapids, Clinton plans to hold forums in Oelwein and in Waverly this afternoon and in Mason City this evening.

Click on the audio link below to listen to Clinton discuss the release of records from her husband’s administration.

 

AUDIO: Clinton on Radio Iowa (mp3 runs 3 min 30 sec)