http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/us/politics/13mccain.html?hp
McCain Differs With Bush on Climate Change
Craig Mitchelldyer/Getty Images
Senator John McCain speaking Monday at a manufacturer of wind turbines
in ****tland, Ore.
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By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: May 13, 2008
****TLAND, Ore. — 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 to combat climate
change.
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Dot Earth: The [Annotated] McCain Climate Speech (May 12, 2008)
The Candidates on Climate Change
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Mr. McCain, in a speech at a wind power company, also pledged to work
with the European Union to diplomatically engage China and India, two
of the world’s biggest polluters, if they refuse to participate in an
international agreement to slow global warming.
In the prepared text of his speech, e-mailed to re****ters on Sunday
night and Monday morning, Mr. McCain went so far as to call for
punitive tariffs against China and India if they evaded international
standards on emissions, but he omitted the threat in his delivered
remarks. Aides said he had decided to soften his language because he
thought he could be misinterpreted as being opposed to free trade, a
central tenet of his campaign and Republican orthodoxy.
But he took a shot at Mr. Bush.
“I will not ****rk the mantle of leader****p that the United States
bears,” Mr. McCain said pointedly. “I will not permit eight long years
to pass without serious action on serious challenges.”
In speeches on the campaign trail, Mr. McCain frequently highlights
the threat of climate change, but he has a mixed record on the
environment in the Senate. In recent years he has pushed legislation
to curb emissions that contribute to climate change, but he has missed
votes on toughening fuel economy standards and has opposed tax breaks
meant to encourage alternative energy.
In his address on Monday, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican
presidential nominee, renewed his sup****t for a “cap-and-trade” system
in which power plants and other polluters could meet limits on
heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide by either reducing emissions
on their own or buying credits from more efficient producers.
Mr. McCain’s break with the Bush administration means that the three
main presidential candidates have embraced swifter action to fight
global warming.
The two Democrats seeking their party’s presidential nomination,
Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New
York, criticized the McCain plan as too timid, because their plans
would reduce emissions more quickly. Leaders of several environmental
groups were also sharply critical and noted Mr. McCain’s Senate votes
against incentives for energy conservation and alternative energy
sources like wind and solar power.
Other environmental advocates offered qualified praise for Mr. McCain,
of Arizona, who was among the first in Congress to introduce
legislation to address the carbon emissions that scientists blame for
the warming of the planet.
Mr. McCain said Monday that the problem demanded urgent national and
international action.
“Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming, or the
precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central
facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless
troubles that global warming will bring,” he said at a Vestas wind
turbine manufacturing plant in Oregon, where the environment is a
central issue for voters. “We stand warned by serious and credible
scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are
great.”
The senator’s remarks were a clear criticism of Mr. Bush, who in his
first term questioned the scientific basis for global warming and who
has remained opposed to mandatory caps on emissions, which he says
would be bad for the American economy. The administration also
rejected the international Kyoto protocol, which limits emissions of
heat-trapping gases.
Mr. McCain’s speech, a compilation and sharpening of many of his
existing proposals, was most notable as a political do***ent that
sought to appeal to the independents he is wooing for November. It put
him slightly to the right of center in the environmental debate.
Mr. McCain simultaneously released a television commercial in Oregon
about his position on climate change and startled audience members at
his speech by praising and sharing the stage with Gov. Theodore R.
Kulongoski, Democrat of Oregon, who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton for
president.
Mr. McCain is the only Republican presidential candidate this year to
call for mandatory limits on heat-trapping gases, but his target for
reducing emissions is lower than that of Senators Clinton and Obama,
and even lower than that in a bill proposed by Senators Joseph I.
Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and John W. Warner, Republican
of Virginia.
In his speech, Mr. McCain advocated cutting emissions 60 percent below
1990 levels by the year 2050; Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama propose
cutting them by 80 percent in the same time frame, while the
Lieberman-Warner bills calls for a 70 percent reduction. Scientists
say reductions of that magnitude are needed to slow and then reverse
production of the gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, which are heating the
atmosphere and causing long-term climate changes.
Mr. McCain said the United States must seek new, cleaner sources of
energy to replace the burning of coal and oil, which produce the bulk
of the gases that are blamed for the warming of the planet. “As we
move toward all of these goals, and over time put the age of fossil
fuels behind us,” he said, “we must consider every alternative source
of power, and that includes nuclear power.”
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