McCain Speech on Energy Policy

Real Clear Politics ^ | April 24, 2007

[Dane]

Senator John McCain delivered remarks yesterday to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center in Washington D.C. Below are Senator McCain's remarks, as prepared for delivery: Thank you. I appreciate the invitation to talk with you about a great and urgent challenge - breaking our nation's critical dependence on foreign sources of oil, and making America safer, stronger and more prosperous by modernizing the way we generate and employ energy. Oil is often called the lifeblood of our economy-the indispensable commodity that keeps commerce humming and America on the move. But, in today's world, our dependency on foreign oil and the way we use hydrocarbons is a major strategic vulnerability, a serious threat to our security, our economy and the well being of our planet. Fortunately, there are times in a nation's history when great challenges coalesce with great moments of opportunity. We are at such a moment today. We have the urgent need and the opportunity to build a safer and thriving future with more diverse, reliable, and cleaner energy. But it will take another indispensable commodity to make it happen -American leadership. I'm running for President to help provide that leadership. And I want to talk a little today about the direction I want to lead us and why. Oil is a vital resource and we will always need it. But we account for 25% of global demand and possess less than 3% of proven reserves. Most of the world's known reserves are in the Persian Gulf, in the hands of dictators or nationalized oil companies.

[aquila48]

“He and the Dems will work together as they have for the past 10 years.”

And what do you think obama/clinton and the dem congress will do? Whatever McCain might do, their programs will be ten times worse and they’ll go through like greased lighting.

[Forgotten Amendments]

And what's your solution?

The market is the solution.

[DoughtyOne]

Earlier today this thread was posted on the forum and I made a cursory review of the article.  I posted a short quip regarding green house gases and left the thread.  Several of you asked me some questions related to the article and I blew them off with short cryptic responses.  I apologize for doing so.  It was my assessment that John McCain is incapable of making a coherent presentation from the conservative perspective.  What I reviewed from the article reinforced that view, and I didn't want to waste time on another thread where some folks wanted to defend the defenseless and others of us didn't want to acknowledge that some low hanging fruit might be present, because to do so would give cover to those who will ignore every warning sign there is, in the interest of shoring up a very losing proposition.

I believe that by now most of you know that I find the prospect of John McCain becoming president to be the absolute worst possible outcome this fall.  I don't say that here to rub it in or try to dissuade anyone else from supporting him, but more to let any person coming along that doesn't know me, or my stand on McCain, to know up front where my loyalties lie.  Then they can choose to dismiss my comments or take them on their own merits as they see fit.

In this presentation from April of 2007, John McCain makes some reasoned comments.  His presentation touches on a good number of issues in ways that I can support.  His assessment of our energy situation is reasoned enough.  His assessment of where we need to go as far as alternative energy sources is reasoned.  His specific suggestion that we need to go nuclear is a good proposal.  His reluctance to provide subsidies to businesses in order to spur alternative energy developments is also reasoned.  On the face of it John makes a pretty good presentation as it addresses energy.  Unfortunately, John's presentation wasn't limited to new energy resources, infrastructure and increased capacity.

In this short speech John veered off the conservative script nine times to touch on twenty-four different leftist propagandist themes for a total of twenty-eight times.  To be fair, he also touched on the issue of free market systems, the spark of the American technological ingenuity and our can do spirit.  That was nice.  What he didn't specifically address though was how he expects us to be competitive if we're going to be saddled with the Kyoto Protocols.  And that my friends is basically what John was touching on here, without actually signing on officially.

John specifically stated that the United States needs to push the technological envelope to lead the way with new discoveries and solutions for the planet.  That sounded real good.  How do you do that when you focus on carbon capture, carbon credit manipulations and enough leftist hurdles to wear out any entrepreneurial distance runner?

For all the hoopla about John's excellent proposals, what I come away with is the realization that with one exception, Hillary Clinton could have presented this very same speech.  That difference would focus on nuclear energy.  We all know that wouldn't appear in the leftist play book.  It might appear in one of the margins with big red letters about something called 'the China Syndrome', but that's about it.

You see, John talks the talk.  Yep, let's free up that American cyclotron of ingenuity, but let's do it in a manner that costs businesses time, energy and money.  What are the globalist ecological hurdles if not a hidden taxation and hindrance to the very process and developments we need so desperately.

Is China going to play by these rules?  No.  How then do we lead the way?

This is like promising the prison inmate a full pardon if he can win the 100 meter race with a ball and chain.  Then we get upset because he just sits there.

Yep John, while I agree with much of what you said here, there are enough troubling mentions of 'balls and chains', that I don't see this as the break through moment on energy that you obviously did.

McCain made this number of comments on these leftist talking points.  Once again, to be fair some of these are not all that unreasoned.  I include them for two reasons.  First of all, why would you need to verbalize the obvious unless you just didn't quite get conservatism from the ground up?  Second, if it weren't for all the other references to idiotic eco globalist myths, I wouldn't have felt the need to highlight how many times he was compelled to spout phrases as if Al Gore had been consulted prior to this presentation.  Here they are:

01 Cap and trade...
01 Carbon Dioxide, burying
01 Carbon, breaking down...
01 Carbon, caps
02 Carbon, capture and storage
01 Carbon Credits, provide industry with (translation, saddle industry with...)
01 Cleaner environment
01 Climate policy, establish a national...  (NEW PROGRAM)
01 Climate, altering our...
02 Climate Change
01 Conservation
01 Credit, generate...
01 Credits, trade...
01 Emissions, lower...
01 Global problem
01 Global solution
01 Greenhouse Gases, Caps
02 Greenhouse Gases, the dangerous accumulation
02 Global Warming
01 Hollywood Invention, this isn't a...
01 Pollution, lower...
01 Potential for major social, economic or political upheaval
01 Potential upheaval, water, arable land and other natural resources
01 Serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security challenge

These are the talking points of a man who is being championed to lead conservatism for the next four years?

The word global was included in this speech six times.  My conservative friends and I seldom use the term unless we are addressing globalist designs on this nation.  And the word wasn't used once in this presentation to address such a concern.  No, it was as if we are all a part of the global village.  When it comes to national policy, I'm not a globalist.  In a very loose sense, I am when it comes to foreign policy as it relates to the military and (less so with regard to) diplomacy.  I am not when we're talking about domestic crash programs of strategic significance.  That is a domestic issue and doesn't need to be elevated to a globalist level in any way shape or form.

Am I being too hard on the guy?  That's for you to decide.

Take care.

[RetiredArmy]

Energy policy?????? Bull s***!!! Our energy policy is made by the environmental wackos because no republican has the balls to stand up and take these wackos and the dimocrats on. NO republican has the balls to stand up and tell the country what these people are doing to us. The high gas prices, the shortages, etc. NO, you can thank the weak spined, weak kneed, cowards in the republican party for not having a set of balls and falling in fear of the dimocrats and the enviro wackos.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Welcome to FR.

2 weeks, and you’re here to oppose John McCain...

How unusual.

[Perdogg]

You honestly believe that John McCain is a leftist-liberal Marxist?

[AmericanVictory]

He certainly has swallowed all the conventional wisdom, which, if it had any merit, would have long since shown some results other than steadily increasing our dependence on foreign oil.

This is particularly true of the greenhouse gas nostrum which shows that at this point rather than lead the Senator still has his head firmly up his behind.