McCAIN LIES: On Alternative Energy

Lying fraud John McCain claims to be a friend of the environment and a proponent of alternative energy. Both of these are incredible falsehoods. Joseph Romm in Salon has the story here:

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.

"I have a long record of that support of alternate energy," McCain said. "I come from a state where we have sunshine 360 days a year ... I've always been for all of those and I have not missed any crucial vote."

In fact, on Dec. 13, 2007, the Senate was considering a bill to spend $13 billion on renewable power over five years. The cloture vote to allow the amendment to be brought to the Senate floor required 60 votes; it received 59 for, 40 against, and one senator absent. Yes, you guessed it: No McCain. A spokesman later said he would have voted to block the bill.

Again, in February, the Senate tried to include in a stimulus package an extension of the renewable tax credit, plus nearly $3 billion more for alternate energy. The cloture vote again failed 59-40-1. And again, McCain's absence didn't kill an unpopular alternative energy bill -- it stopped a popular bill from even coming to a vote.

Yet McCain continues to insist: "I have not missed any crucial vote." He would seem to be either a practiced liar who can fake sincerity, a pathological liar who believes his lies, or a man with simply no memory of key events several months earlier.

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:

Tax credits for clean energy R&D (2001)
Require a 20 percent RPS where utilities buy 20 percent clean energy ('02)
Reduce 20 percent RPS requirement ('02)
Waive 20 percent RPS if utilities balk ('02)
Increase clean energy R&D funding ('05)
Clean energy incentives ('05)
An RPS to require utilities [to] buy some clean energy ('05)
Tax oil companies windfall profits to fund clean energy ('05)

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.

Yes, McCain's record on alternative energy is as bad as the worst anti-environment demagogue in the Senate, James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Oh, and don't forget:

Caribou Barbie, AKA Sarah Palin, is utterly, totally, completely in the pocket of Big Oil right down to the core of her being. Her state gets huge revenues from Big Oil and she's able to hand out big bucks to Alaska's residents because of it--money that comes from the pockets of the other 49 states' residents. Her state government has a symbiotic relationship with the oil industry. 

When McCain argues that he is a strong proponent of alternative fuels, the record is clear:

HE'S LYING.