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McCain Adviser: McCain Will Likely Drop His Cap-and-Trade Policy |
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Two weeks ago during Netroots Nation, Nancy Pelosi said she thought it likely John McCain would flip-flop on his position on climate change, adding she felt meaningful climate legislation depended upon Barack Obama’s election.
Yesterday McCain surrogate (and economic adviser) Steve Forbes seemed to reiterate Pelosi’s sentiments, suggesting the Senator would dump his cap-and-trade policy if elected to office, while stating of similar market-based environmental policies “those things are not going to get very far:”
You’ll notice Forbes also praises McCain for reversing his position on offshore drilling and embracing nuclear energy, which Forbes outrageously calls “moving in the right direction.”
McCain of course was the first Senator to introduce a mandatory cap-and-trade bill in Congress back in 2002, a move that has let him get away with (falsely) claiming leadership on environmental issues. Yet besides his many position reversals against the environment in recent years, such as those on drilling and nuclear power, on cap-and-trade itself McCain is now dramatically toning down his rhetoric. Last month he denied that his cap-and-trade plan included any “mandatory” targets (even though it does, albeit weak ones) and asked journalists to please stop confusing the term “cap-and-trade” with “mandatory targets” (even though the latter defines the former).
As the Wonk Room notes:
On July 9, conservative journalist Larry Kudlow reported that he was told “on deep background†by a “senior McCain official†that McCain was off cap-and-trade…Forbes is signaling that Kudlow may be right, and McCain will follow in the footsteps of George W. Bush. As a candidate in 2000, Bush pledged to impose mandatory reductions of carbon dioxide, but reversed that position once he took the oath of office. In 2001, newly elected Vice President Dick Cheney said of Bush’s pledge, “It was a mistake.â€
For the record a (mandatory) cap-and-trade scheme does not constitute a “gigantic tax” (though I personally would be in favor of a gigantic carbon tax…). It is by far the most flexible and industry-friendly policy approach available to us that will actually address global warming. Here’s hoping 2009 brings a climate plan no less stringent than Barack Obama’s proposed, IPCC-compliant, cap-and-trade scheme.
