http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/mccain-not-so-straight-on_b_107623.html">McCain: Not So Straight On Energy
Posted June 17, 2008 | 03:07 PM (EST)
If you care about climate change, the last 24 hours provide the clearest illustration yet of the choice we face in November, and which candidate understands what we need to do.
In Detroit last night, Barack Obama took the stage with Al Gore to tell tough truths -- and propose specific policies to galvanize decades of green economic growth.
In Houston today, candidate McCain will tell the people that he used to call "special interests" that just because two oilmen are leaving the White House doesn't mean the gravy train has to end. Back in 2000, he promised he would "never lose sight" of the importance of protecting our natural heritage. Today his campaign reversed McCain's longstanding position and endorsed drilling off our coastlines. Oh -- and Senator McCain's reform agenda of getting tough on Big Oil? Now Candidate McCain is against any windfall profits tax to fund renewable energy.
If you think this will lower prices at the pump, think again: oil production from the Outer Continental Shelf (or OCS) wouldn't even begin until 2017 because we don't have the infrastructure -- the network of platforms and hundreds of miles of pipelines -- needed to support expanded drilling. And even the administration's own economists point out that it will have an "insignificant" impact on prices at the pump. Why, then, would anyone who prides himself on 'straight talk' propose drilling for oil that we won't see until at least 9 years from now as an answer to the problems of today? Sadly, it's a page torn out from the same cynical playbook that offered the McCain gas tax holiday.
More at the link on
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/mccain-not-so-straight-on_b_107623.html">Huffington Post
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