Newsweek, FACTCHECK.ORG: McCain's Power Outage 5 pages

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/142500


Contradictions and misstatements short-circuit McCain's energy policy pronouncements.
By Viveca Novak and Justin Bank | factcheck.org
Jun 20, 2008 | Updated: 5:56 p.m. ET Jun 20, 2008

Summary
McCain has spent the week focusing on energy policy, making some surprising, and inaccurate, statements.

Among them:
He said that ending a moratorium on offshore oil drilling "would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis." But according to a government report, offshore oil wouldn't have much of an impact on supply or prices until 2030.

McCain tried to paint Obama as an opponent of nuclear power, yet Obama has said he is open to nuclear energy being part of the solution and has supported bills that contained nuclear subsidies.

He has soft-pedaled the "cap" portion of his cap-and-trade proposal for greenhouse gases, even denying that it would be a mandate. The cap is a mandatory limit, however, and McCain even says so on his Web site.

McCain's new ad, running this week, rightly says that he bucked his party in supporting action on climate change years ago. But its images of windmills and solar panels are misleading in that he supports subsidies for nuclear power, which isn't pictured, and opposes them for wind and solar energy.

McCain continues to say that a suspension of the federal gas tax will lower prices for consumers, though hundreds of economists say he is wrong.

Analysis
Sen. John McCain spent much of the week focusing on energy policy and the pain that drivers are feeling every time they fill their tanks. He outlined his solutions in speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday, and he began running an ad touting his early willingness to break with the GOP on the issue of climate change.

On Board for Offshore Drilling
On Monday, McCain told reporters that permitting offshore drilling "would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis." Tuesday, he formally unveiled the proposal in a speech to oil industry executives.

What McCain wants to do is expand the offshore areas, commonly referred to as the "outer continental shelf" that are open to oil exploration and drilling. The OCS is composed of the "submerged lands, subsoil, and seabed" under the seas extending from 3 to 9 nautical miles from the U.S. shoreline, depending on the state, to at least 200 nautical miles outward, according to the federal government.

Since 1981, there has been a federal moratorium banning any new drilling in these areas. Any rigs that were already up were permitted to continue extracting oil, and many are still operating in the Gulf Coast.

FULL story at link.