The Candidates
John McCain, from his speech today in Portland, Oregon:
Some of the most compelling evidence of global warming comes to us from NASA. No longer do we need to rely on guesswork and computer modeling, because satellite images reveal a dramatic disappearance of glaciers, Antarctic ice shelves and polar ice sheets.
Dear John,
The liberal mainstream media is going to give you a pass on this, but I would be remiss if I didn’t help set the record straight while you’re on your panderfest with treehuggers in the Pacific Northwest.
A few essential reads for your perusal:
H/T to Marc Ambinder
May 12th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Way to go Aron.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Just when I was starting to really want McCain to win.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I do think the one thing McCain can use on this issue is the fact he voted agisnt the Enery bill that had huge Ethonal and Oil subizes at the time those industies do not need government handouts.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Paul,
Even the New York Times editorial board is turning its back on ethanol…
May 11, 2008
Rethinking Ethanol
The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.
This does not mean that Congress should give up on biofuels as an important part of the effort to reduce the country’s dependency on imported oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What it does mean is that some biofuels are (or are likely to be) better than others, and that Congress should realign its tax and subsidy programs to encourage the good ones. Unlike corn ethanol, those biofuels will not compete for the world’s food supply and will deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gases.
Last year’s energy bill required that 36 billion gallons of biofuels be produced annually by 2022. Of that, 21 billion gallons would be “advanced†biofuels that are still mostly in the experimental stage; the rest would be the corn-based variety beloved by farmers, Midwestern politicians and presidential candidates. This mandate comes on top of a 51-cents-a-gallon subsidy to ethanol blenders enacted when the industry was small and oil prices low.
The industry is no longer small — seven billion gallons and climbing rapidly — and oil is over $120 a barrel, making ethanol not only competitive but a bargain.
Ending the tax subsidy should be easy. Ending the mandate will be tougher, though some members of Congress are showing buyer’s remorse. One reason is the worldwide spike in food prices. That has been driven largely by a huge increase in demand and rising energy costs. The diversion of American corn from food to fuel — about one-fourth of the crop — has not helped.
The other reason is a spate of studies suggesting that some biofuels — corn ethanol in particular — could accelerate global warming. Environmentalists had long regarded corn ethanol as at least carbon-neutral, emitting greenhouse gases when burned but absorbing those gases while growing. But rising demand for corn, for fuel and food, can have a profoundly negative effect if it causes farmers to clear previously untouched land, in turn releasing more carbon into the atmosphere.
Congress’s guiding principle should be to tie federal help to environmental performance. The goal is not just to stop the headlong rush to corn ethanol but to use the system to bring to commercial scale promising second-generation biofuels — cellulosic ethanol derived from crop wastes, wood wastes, perennial grasses. These could provide environmental benefits and reduce dependence on oil without displacing food production.
Though Congress is unlikely to undo the mandate, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency can. Unfortunately, President Bush is an ardent corn ethanol supporter, and Stephen Johnson, the E.P.A. administrator, is nothing if not a Bush loyalist.
Without reform, rising food prices and increasing damage to the climate could provoke a reaction that could be the undoing of the entire biofuels industry. That would not be helpful to the industry or the planet.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
McCain or Obama, it is the same.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Just today I heard a panelist at Brooking say the hype against ethanol is overblown. I am somewhat surprised at the NYTimes editorial because it reflects many of the misconceptions about ethanol, including the notion that its food being converted to food. The “corn” for ethanol is not food but rather feed.
Even though I personally believe in global warming,I am also open to being convinced its merely a planetary heating/cooling cycle. I therefore regret that neither candidate will argue the opposing side. This is one downside to nominating someone not a traditional conservative. Abortion likewise will not be an issue widely discussed because McCain is weak on social issues (by which I mean he prefers not to talk about them).
May 12th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I just don’t get why conservatives are so anti-green. At the very least, getting off of oil will improve our balance of payments and reduce smog and athsma. Yes, some industries will be hurt, like big oil. But other sectors will reap dividends. That’s progress.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
If global warming is just a natural planetary occurrence then one could argue that diverting resources to fight it is a waste and that a cap and trade system would make energy costs rise unnecessarily. In other words its a distortion of markets.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Alternative energy can not be developed anywhere near fast enough. We have multi billions of barrels of oil under our own soil, and in the oil sands out West. It only takes 35 dollars per barrel to break even on squeezing the oil out of the sand so, that certainly is no impediment. We need to start producing our own and build a few new refineries just as fast as we possibly can. Meanwhile we will simultaneously go alternative fuels at full speed as well. If we would do both you would see immediate relief in the current cost at the pump. The speculators would have to finally ‘call it a day’ and the bottom would drop out. For national security reasons, we need to have our own source of fossil fuels until such time that alternative methods can gradually phase the fossil fuels out. We have several hundred years available to us within the confines of the USA. We just need to have a Government smart enough to know that is the path they must follow until such time other methods are available to us cost effectively.
McCain is showing us how he finished 894th our of class size of 899 at Annapolis.
May 12th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I was told in grade school I wouldn’t live to age 30 because the next ice age was coming. Well, reverse that DRASTICALLY I guess. What a buncha hoooey. Now I do believe in cutting pollution, certain states are pretty much America’s toxic waste dumps, and I happen to live in one though hopefully not for long. The state is pretty darn conservative, too, so I am thinking it may take liberal influence to clean up the trash sometimes. But I’m pretty sure the libs are wrong on everything else, including global warming.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Global warming occurs whenever Al Gore opens his big fat mouth.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
great info
May 12th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I don’t think most people realize how devastating this cap and trade program will be to our economy.