Senator John McCain has had an interesting environmental record in Congress, to say the least. The League of Conservation Voters has given him a lifetime environmental rating in the Senate of 24%, meaning he has neglected to vote in favor of environmental measures most of the time. While that is certainly sobering, there are problems with just looking at this number. Bills that go through Washington pick up ridiculous amounts of appropriations, pork, and other freebies to entice representatives to vote yay. Sometimes when a representative votes against a bill, it’s not due to an ideological difference but rather to the amount of pork attached to said bill. This, by no means, explains away McCain’s low score, but it does put it in some perspective.
From ontheissues.org, Sen. John McCain is a federalist, which means he supports states’ rights; an issue which came to a head over California’s right to set tougher emissions standards than the EPA. Certainly, allowing states to adopt stricter standards is one way to allow progress in the environmental arena.
He says his environmental hero is Theodore Roosevelt, who was an avid hunter and created the national parks system. McCain has said that the NPS is “6 billion dollars underfunded,” and says he has a commitment to them. While he did help to add ~3 million acres to a wilderness area in Arizona, he also voted to not reduce the Forest Service’s road building budget into wilderness lands, and also voted to not stop the federal credit system which gives credits to loggers to offset debt to the government. (from ontheissues.org)
On the environmental page of his website, Senator McCain touches on wetland loss, the decline of the numbers of hunters and anglers (which results in a decline of funding for habitat protection), the underfunding of national parks, planning for open space and green corridors in communities, and climate change and energy independence. It’s actually a good short list of the environmental problems Americans face today.
Climate Change:
McCain supports a cap and trade emissions system.
Agriculture:
McCain supports the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetland Reserve Program, both of which are programs created from the Farm Bill (for more information read my posts on the 2007 and 2008 farm bills here and here). His website says he also supports bio diesel and cellulosic ethanol – we’ve already discussed the folly of corn ethanol here, and I’m glad to see it’s not on his list of potential domestic energy sources. However, McCain supports more drilling – and Governor Palin supports lifting the ban on drilling in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
His running mate, Governor Sarah Palin, is a climate change skeptic, meaning she doesn’t believe that climate change is induced by human actions.
All in all, McCain has a mixed record. If he gets elected and is able to follow through and clean up the atrocity that is Congress now, perhaps legislation can get through which would accomplish both an economic upturn and environmental progress.
