energy plan that was unveiled in August 2012 would maintain subsidies for oil companies, which Romney's rival for the presidency, Obama, would eliminate. During the 2008 presidential campaign, in November 2007 when all of the Democratic presidential candidates were calling for eliminating billions of dollars of tax breaks for oil companies, Romney told The New York Times, "Now is not the right time to raise taxes on our oil companies." Throughout most of the 2012 presidential campaign, Romney himself made almost no public statements directly commenting on tax breaks for oil and gas companies; and the Romney campaign declined to respond to repeated requests from the Tampa Bay Times''' Politifact and The Washington Post's Fact Checker to clarify his position. However, he did tell a town hall gathering in April 2012 that, in contrast to Obama, he did not want to raise taxes on oil companies. Romney's chief energy advisor also testified before Congress twice during the campaign on behalf of the oil and gas industry that Congress should maintain tax benefits for oil and gas producers. During the first presidential debate between Romney and Obama, in October 2012, Romney hinted for the first time that as president he might consider eliminating $2.8 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas producers if Congress would agree to cut the tax rate for all corporations by 30%. Disaster relief As governor of Massachusetts, Romney requested federal disaster assistance to help with cleaning up after storms. During the 2012 presidential primary campaign, when asked what the federal government's role should be in responding to natural disasters, Romney suggested that responsibility for handling disasters should be taken from FEMA, the federal agency dedicated to disaster relief, and given to the states, or outsourced to the private sector: "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut -- we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we're doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we're doing that we don't have to do? And those things we've got to stop doing, because we're borrowing $1.6 trillion more this