POLITIC''S & CARBONMcCain, Clinton, Obama share like views on energy, environment
With apologies to Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Republican, who at this time is vowing to stay in the race for his party's nomination, the next president will come from the Senate: John McCain, Republican-Arizona; or Hillary Clinton, Democrat-New York; or Barack Obama, Democrat-Illinois.
Among the three, there is a surprising convergence of views on many key environmental and energy issues. The following review of their positions is drawn largely from policy statements from the campaigns, speeches by the candidates and their Senate voting records.
Of course, past is not necessarily prologue and politicians can be unapologetically malleable. President George W. Bush pledged during his 2000 campaign that he would control carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
He abandoned that position immediately after taking office and continued, throughout his two terms, to reject any mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. That's particularly noteworthy because all three of the senators vying for Bush's job say they will chart a course on global warming that is, in all cases, dramatically different from the administration's policies.
In 2003, and again in 2005 and 2007, McCain and co-sponsor Senate Joseph Lieberman, Independent Democrat-Connecticut, introduced legislation mandating greenhouse gas emission reductions of 65% by 2050, and establishing a cap-and-trade system. The bills were rejected twice by the Senate.
Climate change "isn't a Hollywood invention nor is doing something about it a vanity of Cassandra-like hysterics," McCain said in a speech posted on his campaign web site. "It is a serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security challenge."
Cap-and-trade is the best way to manage costs and maximize the benefits of reducing emissions, McCain said in a speech last April, but he added that other market-based mechanism should be considered.
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