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John McCain is About as Green as a Barrel of Oil

September 25, 2008 · Print This Article

John McCain has been trying to sell us the message that he’s ‘green’ for months now.  Between the false promises he spouts at every opportunity and his laughable line of ‘eco-friendly merchandise’, McCain is doing everything he can to appear just as environmentally responsible as his opponent, Barack Obama.  Too bad most of us are aware that it’s simply not true. Despite McCain’s attempts to greenwash his record and how he would run the country given the chance, his record shows that he’s about as green as a barrel of oil.

From Salon.com:

The facts are clear. All you have to do is look at his voting record. It reveals that McCain has long been one of the strongest opponents of clean energy in Congress, with a record matching that of James Inhofe, the most hardcore global-warming denier in the Senate, who comes from the heart of the oil patch in Oklahoma.

Recently the Associated Press noted that “McCain has not shown up for eight Senate votes last year and this year to extend [renewable energy] tax credits, which expire at the end of this year. The last such vote was July 30.” Yet at an Aspen Institute meeting in August, when McCain was asked about those missed votes, he simply lied to the audience.

As for McCain’s “long record of that support of alternate energy,” consider the votes on renewable energy funding and a federal “renewable portfolio standard” (RPS) that he did show up for this decade:

In every case, McCain voted against renewables, as did Sen. “Global warming is ‘the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people’” Inhofe. On the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the biggest congressional effort to push alternative energy in more than a decade, McCain voted against it along with just 11 other senators. Even Inhofe voted for it.

As Salon notes, part of the reason McCain consistently votes against renewable energy is likely the fact that he’s technologically out of touch.  He has claimed that “the truly green technologies don’t work”, saying that “most every expert” he knows believes that even if we maximized renewables in every way, the contribution they would make is “very small”.  He also disagreed with T. Boone Pickens – the noted conservative Texas oil billionaire who’s now pushing wind power – that renewable energy could meet the demand over the next 20 years, a fact that even the Bush administration admits to.  If even Bush sees the truth of green technology and McCain doesn’t, you get the idea of how much trouble we’ll be in if this guy wins.

Link [Salon]
Photo credit: EarthFirst composite/AP

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The Truth About McCain and Big Oil
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Comments

3 Responses to “John McCain is About as Green as a Barrel of Oil”

  1. Gideon on September 25th, 2008 8:04 am

    Stephanie – You should take a lesson from your Admin on crafting an argument. Once again, utilizing deragatory speech only turns your readers against you and creates the urge in them to prove you wrong. If argument is your goal, keep writing as you do. However, if altering the perspectives of others to agree with your own is your objective, then win with the facts and leave the deragatory comments out.

    Global warming is a subject that I have seen debated with great supporting facts for both sides. A group of scientists have studied the earth and the climate and found that the earth is actually (overall) cooler. I do not agree nor disagree with this point because I do not have the background to argue with scientists and their findings.

    However, I do agree that we need better alternative, renewable energy. And fostering invention from wherever the ideas may come from, like this 12 year old that is revolutionizing the soalr cell (http://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/story.php?story_id=122109656865633500). But until we have a good alternative, we are still going to need our oil based energy and the Democrat party agrees, even Nancy Pelosi – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/17/AR2008091703425.html?hpid=topnewsenergy .

  2. Stephanie Rogers on September 25th, 2008 8:55 am

    Gideon, perhaps it would help you to recognize that we aren’t trying to be politically impartial here. We believe that John McCain would be a disaster for the environment. This is a blog, not a newspaper – we’re not obligated to hold back on our own opinions. As for your comments about the article by ‘admin’, as noted at the bottom of the article, it’s a guest post written by the Mesothelioma Cancer Center, not by EarthFirst staff.

  3. Shea Gunther on September 25th, 2008 9:42 am

    RAmen Steph. Well said. McCain is a liar, a corrupt old man who would ruin this great nation of ours in every way possible. We don’t write for deadenders like yourself Gideon, we’re putting stuff out for the people smart enough to see through McSame’s weak spin and Rovian slimeball tactics.

    Why do you hate America so much Gideon?

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