Green Campaign Watch: Is McCain an Energy Flip-Flopper?

Is McCain the John Kerry of energy? News reports this week are essentially calling him a flip-flopper when it comes to his energy record and policy. The Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg say the presidential candidate has had varying stances on offshore oil drilling, clean energy tax incentives, nuclear power and playing favorites with specific clean power technologies.

“The Arizona senator has swerved from one position to another over the years, taking often contradictory stances on the federal government’s role in energy policy.” – Los Angeles Times.

The LA Times article picks through the presidential candidate’s record and points out that McCain has called for both reducing and expanding offshore oil drilling, and has declared there should be no tax breaks for clean energy but backs billions of subsidies for the nuclear biz. McCain has called for 100 new nuclear power plants, 45 of which he wants built by 2030, but the LA Times says McCain voted 5 times in the 90’s against taxpayer aid for research on nuclear reactors, and in 2003 opposed federal loan guarantees for nuclear power.

Bloomberg points out that McCain doesn’t want to play favorites when it comes to which clean energy technology to promote — let the market decide is the theory — and is miffed (like the rest of us) about ethanol subsidies.

But his energy plans goes ahead and picks favorites, calling for $30 billion in government funding for clean coal research and those new nuclear power plants. McCain policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin tells Bloomberg that “the plan is not calibrated to make interest groups happy.” Though it sounds more like what Tim Greef, deputy legislative director of the League of Conservation Voters, tells the Los Angeles Times: It’s “a very sporadic pattern here.”

Comments have been disabled for this post