{"id":14982,"date":"2008-03-22T16:25:30","date_gmt":"2008-03-22T20:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14982.html"},"modified":"2008-03-22T16:25:30","modified_gmt":"2008-03-22T20:25:30","slug":"on-the-environment-mccain-offers-more-of-the-same-for-the-most-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/on-the-environment-mccain-offers-more-of-the-same-for-the-most-part\/","title":{"rendered":"On the environment, McCain offers more of the same — for the most part"},"content":{"rendered":"

Usually, when highlighting the ways in which John McCain offers the nation four more years of George W. Bush, the list includes a familiar litany of issues — war policy, foreign policy, irresponsible tax cuts for the very wealthy, healthcare, education. Dealing with the environment, however, generally doesn’t make the list.<\/p>\n

To his credit, McCain, unlike most Republican leaders, believes global warming science and recognizes the need to combat it. His proposals aren’t exactly ambitious, but McCain’s position alone helps gives the impression that, as Republicans go, he’d be a step in the right direction on environmental policy.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, even this assumption is starting to draw scrutiny<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters] and other environmentalists criticize McCain’s positions on renewable energy, livestock-grazing practices, timber sales and funding to conserve public lands, wildlife and oceans.<\/p>\n

In his quarter-century in Congress, McCain has demonstrated a “pattern of voting with polluters and special interests instead of consumers and the planet,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club.<\/p>\n

McCain antagonized environmentalists by voting in 2006 to open 8 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling. In addition, they have clashed over McCain’s support for multibillion-dollar subsidies to the nuclear industry.<\/p>\n

He was also criticized for backing conventional uses of coal while opposing requirements for electric utilities to get more of their power from renewable energy sources.<\/p>\n

Separately, the Arizona senator has been taken to task for his support of President George W. Bush’s 2007 budget, which cut funding for conservation programs by more than $3 billion, or 10 percent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remember, this is one of those rare issues in which McCain is considered better<\/i> than Bush.
\n
\nBut, at least he’s good on climate change, right? Well, kind of.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists agree that McCain has been a leader on global warming in his party. Yet they said his plan to cap greenhouse gases doesn’t go as far as proposals from Democratic presidential candidates, Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.<\/p>\n

“His proposal now falls far short of what the science says is needed,” Karpinski said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Carl Pope, executive director of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club, added, “People can easily be fooled by the fact that McCain’s taken a fairly good position on one aspect of global warming but has actually taken fairly bad positions on many other aspects…. McCain has spoken consistently on behalf of environmental protection. Yet he has voted in a way that doesn’t back his words.”<\/p>\n

Bradford Plumer had a great piece<\/a> about this a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

It wouldn’t be wholly outlandish for McCain to follow in Schwarzenegger’s steps: After all, during the early Bush years, the Arizona senator did more than just about anyone to put climate change on Congress’s radar. On the other hand, his lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters is a dismal 24 percent, and he’s generally more likely to side with miners, developers, and loggers than the EPA. So, while it’s possible a McCain presidency could offer a Nixon-to-China moment on global warming, it’s also possible McCain could say all the right things on the campaign trail and disappoint environmentalists once in office. How green is<\/i> John McCain, anyway?<\/p>\n

Trying to explain McCain’s wildly erratic record on environmental issues is a maddening task. “We never know where he’s going to come from,” says Debbie Sease, the legislative director of the Sierra Club. “As a general rule, on land and conservation issues … he tends to be pretty good. But he’s a doctrinaire conservative on the role of government in protecting people from pollution.” In his early House years, McCain was mentored by Morris Udall, an Arizona Democrat and conservationist. Soon enough, McCain was championing legislation to limit flights over the Grand Canyon and, as a freshman senator in 1990, snarling at senior Republicans to back down on local water issues.<\/p>\n

But, when he wasn’t safeguarding Arizona scenery, McCain usually held the conservative line, voting to hollow out clean-water and health protections or to expand offshore drilling.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is supposed to be the one issue — the only<\/i> issue — in which McCain can make a straight-face claim to being a moderate. On everything else, he’s gone to the right, in some cases, the hard right. But on the environment, he’s supposed to be relatively sensible.<\/p>\n

I appreciate McCain’s recognition of reality of global warming, but to call him reliable on environmental issues is a stretch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usually, when highlighting the ways in which John McCain offers the nation four more years of George W. Bush, the list includes a familiar litany of issues — war policy, foreign policy, irresponsible tax cuts for the very wealthy, healthcare, education. Dealing with the environment, however, generally doesn’t make the list. To his credit, McCain, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}