Should We Still Trust John McCain on Global Warming?

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In environmental circles, there’s definitely some discomfort with leading GOP contender John McCain on the subject of global warming.

Granted, we all know McCain has a strong history on theย issue.

He was co-sponsor of the 2003 McCain-Lieberman legislation, a failed attempt to achieve a cap on U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. And there’s no doubt that McCain is much more serious about taking mandatory action than other Republican hopefuls, like Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romneyโ€“who has been bashing the Arizona senator repeatedly for being too strong on the climateย issue.

But at the same time, while Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have released detailed energy and climate policy proposals, you’ll find nothing of the sort on McCain’s official campaignย website.

Instead there’s just a brief snippet of text explaining how McCain is the next Teddy Roosevelt, a green Republican, and saying of the Arizona senator, โ€œHe has offered common sense approaches to limit carbon emissions by harnessing market forces that will bring advanced technologies, such as nuclear energy, to the market faster, reduce our dependence on foreign supplies of energy, and see to it that America leads in a way that ensures all nations do their rightfulย share.โ€

McCain’s campaign website then goes on to talk about how we can โ€œmeet our obligation to be proper caretakers of creation.โ€ This is clearly a presentation geared towards Republican votersโ€”rather than wonks who want to know precisely what a McCain presidency would mean for our most pressing environmentalย challenge.

Indeed, recently McCain got caught egregiously spinning during the January 24 GOP debate. No kidding: He dared to suggest that a cap on emissions (which he supports) is something other than precisely thatโ€“a cap. The Straight Talk express crashed and burned that evening, and that’sย dismaying.

Nevertheless, if you look through the full recordโ€“and past the present, high-stakes political momentโ€“it’s still possible to reach a much more optimistic outlook about how a President McCain would presumably handle climateย change.

Arguably the chief document in this regard (at least if we seek something recentโ€“and before the political pressure of the primaries) is McCain’s January 30, 2007 testimony to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on theย subject.

In his Senate testimony, McCain outlined five broad principles that must characterize any policy to address globalย warming:

1. โ€œrational, mandatory emission reduction targets and timetablesโ€

2. โ€œa market-based, economy wide ‘cap and trade’ systemโ€

3. โ€œmechanisms to minimize costs and work effectively with other marketsโ€

4. โ€œit must spur the development and deployment of advanced technologyโ€

5. โ€œit must facilitate international efforts to solve the problemโ€

McCain is strongly opposed to the โ€œcarbon taxโ€ route. He’s also a big supporter of nuclear energyโ€”he thinks that given how much power it provides today it has to be part of any solution, though he acknowledges outstanding waste disposal issues. In fact, according to the Washington Post, the failure to embrace nuclear power explicitly was a chief reason McCain did not add his name officially to the current, moderate and bipartisan Lieberman-Warner climate bill.

Nevertheless, McCain’s outlook very much shares the spirit of that billโ€”he wants compromise, rather than trying to ram through a very ambitious policy very quickly. Above all, McCain preaches pragmatism on climateย policy.

As he put it in another speech at the Center for Strategic and Internationalย Studies:

The policy must include mechanisms to control costs and protect the economy. Just as there is danger in doing too little, there is peril in going too far, too fast, in a way that imposes unsustainable costs on the economy. I believe โ€œcap and tradeโ€ is the best way to manage cost and maximize benefits, but we must look at other market-based means to give added assurance that our policies are an instrument of job creation, economic progress, and environmental problem solving.

So what’s the upshot here? What would a McCain presidency really mean for ourย planet?

First, it’s too bad that McCain has been spinning lately (presumably to protect himself from Romney), and that he hasn’t laid out more explicitly a policy plan for addressing climate change if elected president. However, McCain’s history on the issue ought to convince anyone that he’s serious about taking actionโ€”and anyway, a policy plan outlined now may not be the best approach for the very different political context that will most assuredly exist inย 2009.

Second, it seems unlikely that a McCain policy on climate will go as far as the policies proposed by the leading Democratic contenders, which call foran 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2050. Given his focus on cost containment and pragmatism, and his history of working with the very moderate (or even conservative) Joe Lieberman, we should expect that McCain would shy from so ambitious a target. And that’s something that will make environmental groups somewhat less than ecstatic of his approach (although of course they’ll still recognize that he’s vastly better than Romney orย Giuliani).

So where does that leaveย us?

There seem to me to be two fundamental points. One: Anyone who cares about global warming should want McCain to vanquish his Republican opponents in the primaries. If we get McCain versus one of the Democrats in the general election, we’ll have two candidates who want strong action (even if their precise stances may differ). Whoever wins in that scenario, we’ll be better off in the climate arena than ever beforeโ€”and we can count on action finally happening.

The other fundamental point is this. While McCain’s support of nuclear power and his more cautious approach to greenhouse gas regulation each can be criticized, neither rates, in my view, as an irredeemable flaw. Politics is too messy for purism on these mattersโ€”and the climate problem tooย urgent.

A McCain presidency would certainly be a great step forward on climate, and given our nation’s past history on this issue, wellโ€ฆthat’s more than aย start.

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