McCain Is So Different
by Devilstower
Tue May 13, 2008 at 06:45:42 AM PDT
John McCain had the eager press lined up on this one for weeks. He was going to take a stand and differentiate himself from Bush by offering his solution to climate change. And today was the momentous day. McCain made his speech and no less than the New York Times dutifully trotted out an article titled McCain Differs With Bush on Climate Change.
Senator John McCain sought to distance himself from President Bush on Monday as he called for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. ... In what his campaign promoted as a major speech on climate change, the Arizona senator renewed his support for a "cap-and-trade" system in which power plants and other polluters could meet limits on greenhouse gases by either reducing emissions on their own or buying credits from more efficient producers.
The plan that McCain offers turns out to be an extremely weak one, one that's even less effective than the completely inadequate Lieberman-Warner Bill.
Mr. McCain is the only Republican presidential candidate this year to call for mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, but his target for reducing those emissions over time is lower than that of his Democratic competitors, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and even lower than that in a bill proposed by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia.
So what is in McCain's proposal that differentiates him from Bush? Not much. In fact, the same article notes that McCain's positions puts him "slightly right of center" on the climate change issue, which apparently means that McCain is willing to admit that climate change is a problem, but not willing to make any substantive suggestion on how to address the issue.
What the Times article doesn't mention is that back in 2000, candidate Bush also said the climate change was an issue and pledged to regulate CO2. It wasn't until after his election that that cuddly, caring, compassionate conservative Bush's positions gave way to the standard GOP line.
Under strong pressure from conservative Republicans and industry groups, President Bush reversed a campaign pledge today and said his administration would not seek to regulate power plants' emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that many scientists say is a key contributor to global warming. ... As recently as 10 days ago, Christie Whitman, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, had described Mr. Bush's campaign promise as if it were already policy.
So what's the difference between Bush and McCain? One is a Republican who is already in office, the other is a Republican running for office. Far from making him different from Bush, McCain's empty promises make him exactly the same as the man whose administration he's running to extend.
What evidence is there that McCain would break Bush's flip-flop record if he gets the chance to sit in the Oval Office? How about this: McCain is being advised on these issues by Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute, who just this morning put out an op-ed explaining how we can't let the environment get in the way of cheap energy. And of course the proposals McCain put forward today don't align very well with his other big push for a gas tax holiday.
But since he started running for president last year, McCain has largely downplayed climate change. He hasn’t declared support for a tougher and more detailed bill, proposed by Senators John Warner and McCain ally Joe Lieberman. And his top domestic policy recently suggested that McCain might not even stand by his own weaker bill, telling a reporter: "He wasn’t so much committed to the bill as to an issue."
So, McCain proposes a weak, pointless bill. One of his advisers suggests he won't even stand by that proposal, while another argues that cheap energy trumps environmental concerns. Boy, that sure is different.
As has already been demonstrated time and again, "maverick" McCain's difference from the hard right extends as far as his words, and stops well short of his deeds. Coming from McCain, any promise on climate change is nothing but hot air.
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