A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

To some extent, it's now dawning on John McCain that America must take action on energy. But why has it taken him 30-some years, and why is he still only looking at the production side?

John McCain's new proposals on energy include calls for opening up additional offshore drilling leases and a push to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 -- and ultimately 100 or so new reactors [1] over a longer time frame, thus roughly doubling the current nuclear reactor count.

McCain hasn't specified where the new reactors would go. Doing so might well be expected to spark disadvantageous election-season disapproval in affected regions. [Existing reactors are mapped out here [2]]. Nor has McCain explained who would pay for the new power plants.

As The New York Times reported in June, 2008:

[Most environmentalists say ...] that no utility will put its own financing into building a plant unless the federal government lavishly subsidizes it.

“Wall Street won’t invest in these plants because they are too expensive and unreliable, so Senator McCain wants to shower the nuclear industry with billions of dollars of taxpayer handouts,” said Daniel J. Weiss, who heads the global warming [3] program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal research group.

Also, in what looked like either primary-season pandering, or a barely noticed instance of the Senator "misspeaking," McCain suggested in May, 2008, that the United States participate in an international nuclear waste repository [4]as an alternative to shipping radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain. In making that argument, evidently, McCain failed to consider national security implications:

"The concept of a single repository overseas for smaller nations and those with nuclear power startups makes sense, but not for the United States ...," said Per Peterson, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley. ...

"But even if nuclear waste from commercial power plants were shipped elsewhere, a U.S. repository would still be needed for highly radioactive waste generated by the military over the years, Peterson said.

"It is difficult for me to see sending those materials to an international repository," he said. "I think that stuff, we really want to handle ourselves."

McCain emphatically argues that it's time for the U.S. to pull out all the stops to produce more energy domestically: "Now, nuclear power alone is not enough. Drilling alone is not enough. We need to do all this and more. That is why I am calling for an 'all of the above' approach." Despite that avowed "all of the above" approach, the McCain campaign consistently mocks proposed solutions involving conservation. [4]

Maybe John McCain does "get it" that America's current energy consumption vs. energy production pattern must change. Yet he only chooses to look at one side of the equation? Why?

It may be as simple as stubborn rejection of all things Democratic.

In the 1970s, John McCain was serving as a Navy officer. He was much heralded as a repatriated POW; he was photographed with Richard Nixon; Ross Perot helped pay medical bills for John's first wife, who had suffered severe injuries in a car accident; and the McCains were "frequent guests of honor [5] at dinners hosted by Governor of California Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan."

At that time, here's what the Democratic Party leader, President Jimmy Carter, was saying about energy:

... The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.

Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation. ...

Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a ... change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.

... we do have a choice about how we will spend the next few years. Each American uses the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil per person each year. Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden.

One choice is to continue doing what we have been doing before. We can drift along for a few more years.

... we would need to import twice as much oil as we do now. Supplies will be uncertain. The cost will keep going up. ...

The President's Proposed Energy Policy: televised on April 18, 1977 [6] (pbs.org)

To some extent, it's now dawning on John McCain, 31 years later in 2008, that America must act. But why has it taken 31 years, and why is he still only looking at the production side?

One other aspect of President Carter's 1977 energy speech should be recalled. He pointed out the folly in failing to embrace conservation:

We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country.

If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions.

The President's Proposed Energy Policy: televised on April 18, 1977 [7] (pbs.org)

That sounds a lot like America, 2008. What part of that did John McCain fail to get?

John McCain = Rip Van Winkle? Asleep all those years?

* * *

McCain.com: On Energy Policy [8]

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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