On the environment, McCain offers more of the same - Bloomberg

By admin at 22 March, 2008, 8:30 pm

[Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters] and other environmentalists criticize McCain’s positions on renewable energy, livestock-grazing practices, timber sales and funding to conserve public lands, wildlife and oceans.

In his quarter-century in Congress, McCain has demonstrated a “pattern of voting with polluters and special interests instead of consumers and the planet,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club.

McCain antagonized environmentalists by voting in 2006 to open 8 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling. In addition, they have clashed over McCain’s support for multibillion-dollar subsidies to the nuclear industry.

He was also criticized for backing conventional uses of coal while opposing requirements for electric utilities to get more of their power from renewable energy sources.

Separately, the Arizona senator has been taken to task for his support of President George W. Bush’s 2007 budget, which cut funding for conservation programs by more than $3 billion, or 10 percent.

[full article]