John McCain

McCain ‘might take [new CAFE standards] off the books’

We've heard climate double talk from McCain on "mandates" and "dependence on foreign energy sources." Now, in a stunning interview with E&E News ($ub. req'd), the McCain campaign seriously undermines its claim that the Arizona senator could successfully take on the global warming threat.

As the reporter put it, "the Arizona senator's presidential campaign is trying to differentiate itself from its Democratic rivals by rejecting calls for additional climate-themed restrictions." This, however, is a potentially fatal difference.

I don't know which of three statements by "Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a McCain campaign policy adviser" is more wrong-headed.

"The basic idea is if you go with a cap and trade and do it right with appropriate implementation, you don't need technology-specific and sectoral policies that are on the books and that others are proposing simultaneously."

This statement could not be more inaccurate and naïve. A cap-and-trade system without on aggressive technology development/deployment effort, especially in the transportation sector, will inevitably fail because it causes too much economic pain, as I explained at length in "No climate for old men." And now we get the explicit statement that McCain opposes "technology-specific and sectoral policies that are on the books" if we have a cap-and-trade.

McCain’s crooked talk on nuclear power

This week John McCain has an article in the Financial Times: "America must be a good role model." It has two paragraphs on the need for leadership on greenhouse gas reductions but endorses only one low-carbon energy source:

Right now safe, climate-friendly nuclear energy is a critical way both to improve the quality of our air and to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources.

That dependence, I am afraid, has become a vulnerability for both the US and Europe and a source of leverage for the oil and gas exporting autocracies.

You can tell a politician is being wishy-washy when he or she uses the phrase "dependence on foreign energy sources." There is really only one foreign energy source Americans care much about -- oil. It comes from unstable and undemocratic regions, and our trade deficit in it now exceeds $1 billion a day.

But nuclear power can't significantly reduce US oil consumption or imports -- because very, very little electricity in this country is generated by burning petroleum (only 1.6 percent of electricity in 2006 came from oil). [In the future that could change when a significant number of vehicles on the road substitute electricity for gasoline, but that is not imminent.]

Why this is the last election, and another look at McCain

This is the last U.S. election. Have we taken stock of the implications? There is no room for incremental thinking. The storm will fall on whomever we elect president (and isn't there a case for McCain?). Among the startling implications of breaching the 350 ppm limit is the likelihood that this is the last U.S. presidential election during which there remains a slim opportunity to take decisive global climate action.

All the ordinary rules and habits of elections and campaigning have been summarily and unexpectedly tossed out the window. Building party power, advancing political careers, and addressing climate incrementally are no longer plausible strategies. We must now concern ourselves with electing leaders of character who will rise to the challenge as the crisis begins to unfold and political systems are stressed.

Comparing campaign climate policies, in this context, is not the best measure of candidates. The differences between Clinton, McCain, and Obama on climate are minuscule compared to the gulf between the state of U.S. civic debate and the scale of response required to avert cataclysm. Furthermore, a simple head-to-head comparison of policy takes no account and gives no credit for the key indicators of political grit and integrity: context and history.

John McCain may espouse the weakest platform of the three, but he adopted his position early and at high potential political cost. Both Clinton, who logged more dinner time with Al Gore then almost anyone, and Obama, a N.Y. PIRG college intern who credits LCV with his surprise victory in his first Senate race, were positioned to be strong climate action advocates but did not do so.

Primaries thread

This is the thread to discuss all things election related this evening. To kick things off: Obama wins Vermont, handily, as expected. From what I hear the other three are tight. UPDATE: According to CNN, McCain has won Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island, thereby securing the Republican nomination. Guess Huckabee should have majored in […]

McCain’s environmental record

Don’t miss Brad Plumer’s excellent review of John McCain’s environmental record in The New Republic. He covers a lot of the same ground I covered in my piece on the same subject, only with more of the entertaining details and anecdotes that make him a magazine feature writer and me a mere blogger. On the […]

VP hopeful Pawlenty fails energy/climate conservative litmus test

Just in case you thought conservatives might be warming up to climate action and clean energy with the impending nomination of John McCain, uber-conservative columnist Bob Novak explains otherwise in a column titled "How Not to Run for Vice President."

As a nonconservative, I know I can't do justice to Novak's "logic" by summarizing it, and I suspect many readers would think I was taking his argument out of context, since it seems so ... well ... judge for yourself. I'll just reprint most of it:

Crist

Florida governor Charlie Crist is arguably greener than John McCain, and is often discussed as a possible running mate. Here he is kissing McCain’s ass, conspicuously failing to deny that he’s being considered for the VP slot, conspicuously failing to say he wouldn’t take it, and listing the three major issues for the general campaign […]

Will the next president stop construction on the border wall?

Last night's debate included some good news for the embattled wildlife and landscape of the Southwest.

In response to a question about whether or not they would slow construction of the border wall under construction in the Southwest, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton criticized the wall as ineffective and counterproductive.

John McCain scores a big ol’ goose egg on this year’s environmental report card

Today, the League of Conservation Voters released its annual scorecard, which rates legislators based on their votes on issues of environmental significance. The LCV scorecard has its critics, but it’s nonetheless become something of a gold standard when measuring how "green" a lawmaker is. A couple of big stories emerge from this year’s scorecard. The […]