[Vision2020] Palin Destroys McCain's Credibility on Energy and the Environment

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Good Morning Visionaries:

This is my radio commentary/column for the week.  Cheerleader Palin has added another chant to her repertroire as she campaigned in Kentucky: "Mine, Baby, Mine."  We should add that one to the bumper sticker: "Earth First! We'll Mine the Other Planets Later."

The complete version is attached as a PDF file. Read all my election columns at www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/Election08.htm.

Have a great day counting down to a great Obama victory,

Nick

PALIN DESTROYS MCCAIN'S CREDIBILITY 
ON ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Sarah fouled her own nest, and I can't understand why. 
I hate to think it was simply greed or ambition.

--Wasilla schoolteacher Patty Stoll

In 2003 Senators McCain and Lieberman drafted a cap-and-trade bill to contain carbon emissions that got 43 votes in the Senate, a dramatic change after similar restrictions in the Kyoto Protocol were defeated by 95-0 in 1997.  

But in 2007 McCain refused to support an almost identical bill solely because it did not include nuclear power. People are now wondering if McCain is really serious about global warming, or is he more concerned, as one critic put it, about "burnishing his maverick reputation."

A principled position on global warming is out of the question now that Palin is on the ticket.  Last December she told the Fairbanks Daily Miner that "I'm not a doom and gloom environmentalist like Al Gore blaming the changes in our climate on human activity." 

Boasting about her position as governor of the nation's only arctic state, Palin appears oblivious to the reasons why the last two summers have seen the greatest melting of sea ice in recorded history. Even though Alaska's own state biologists agree that polar bears are threatened, Palin claims that she has their support in suing the U.S. government over their listing as an endangered species.  

The federal government has also proposed listing the beluga whales of Alaska's Cook Inlet as endangered.  Even though their populations declined 50 percent between 1994 and 1998, Palin resists the move because she wants to lease the waters for oil exploration.  

Although McCain opposes it, Palin also wants to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Do we really want to sacrifice the long term survival of Alaska's magnificent creatures on the short term altar of the religion of "Drill, Baby, Drill"?   

In 2007 Governor Palin went ahead with dumping toxic wastes in the Cook Inlet even though the plan was based on the "long-discounted notion that 'dilution is the solution to pollution'—turning the federal Clean Water Act on its head" (The New Republic [10/28/08]).   

Palin opposed an August 26, 2008 ballot measure which would have forced a clean up toxic metals from mining sites. Researchers believe that these metals are the principal reason that Alaska's birth defect rate is 3 percent higher than the national average. The mining industry took great advantage of the governor's pronouncements and was able to defeat the measure.

McCain has made the incredible claim that Palin knows more about energy than anyone in the nation, but she doesn't even have basic energy facts straight.  She claims that her state alone accounts for 20 percent of the nation's energy, when in fact in 2005 Alaska produced only 3.5 percent of energy consumed in the U.S. Even if Palin meant oil, not total energy, Alaska's portion of U.S. oil and gas production, according the Energy Information Administration, was 7.4 percent in 2005.	

McCain keeps saying that we need to explore all energy options, including wind and solar, but he opposes tax credits for the latter while recommending a $3.7 billion hand out for three new nuclear power plants.  

McCain is simply wrong when he says that the wind and solar industries are "doing fine," because their technological momentum relies heavily on federal help.  The tax credits for these industries would be significantly less than the $24.6 billion that McCain would need to subsidize the 20 nuclear plants that he envisions.

As a fiscal conservative, McCain should know that the nuclear option is the most expensive one. Estimating $8 billion for each plant, the cost per megawatt is $2.29 million compared to a coal plant at $1.7 million and a wind farm at $1.8 million.  

The costs of taking care of the nuclear waste are not included, and the U.S. is now 20 years behind schedule in this regard.  The coal plant costs do not include a carbon tax, which at $30 per ton would be $230 million a year.  

With only 2.4 percent of the world's petroleum reserves and 25 percent of the world's consumption (6 times more per capita than Europe), we cannot possibly drill our way to energy self-sufficiency.  

Only with major investments in alternative forms of energy and concerted efforts to conserve can the U.S. solve its energy crisis and reduce its irresponsible carbon emissions.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: McCainEnviron1108.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 21573 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20081023/7cd4d237/attachment-0001.pdf