McCain said tonight he is the candidate of change. How is billions of dollars in subsidies to build hundreds of nuclear power plants change?

Here is everything you need to know about McCain’s understanding of both energy and climate issues: He doesn’t care enough about the climate to support even a so-so bill like Boxer-Lieberman-Warner unless their are giga-subsidies for nukes beyond the $100 billion or so the industry has received to date.

[flv http://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/ClimateProgress/flv/2008/06/mccainclimatereal.320.240.flv]

Q: Can you tell us your position on the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill?

JOHN MCCAIN: Yeah. I still have not seen in the Warner Lieberman bill, the emphasis and the way to facilitate nuclear power into active operation and use in the United States of America. That’s my concern about Warner Lieberman. And I feel that nuclear power is such a vital aspect of any real meaningful action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that I have withheld support for it, because I really want to see, and I am told there will be some amendments on the floor, that will dramatically increase the nuclear component of it. So far, it’s not enough for me.

Nuclear is, right now, among the most expensive zero-carbon options, with new generation coming in at $6,000 to $8000 per kilowatt, which would generate electricity for $o.15 a kilowatt hour, which is about 50% higher than current US electricity prices (see “The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power, Part 1“).

A mature technology, with 20% market share and $100 billion in subsidies since 1948 whose liability in case of a major accident is limited by federal law (with the full liability burden falling on taxpayers) hardly deserves more subsidies.

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Tom Tomorrow via Salon:

I’m glad my Republican friends are so interested in high gasoline prices, and we’re going to give them the opportunity in the coming days to stand up to those causing oil prices to be so high.

This is a very important start, but in my view, and in view of most scientists, this bill must be strengthened in a number of ways.

Runs through the basic IPCC conclusions. What does unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases mean? An increase in human misery and death. Major decrease in fresh-water availability around the world. Spain is desertifying.

The world is crying out American leadership.

The problem is solvable, and it’s not as hard as many people believe.

We know what has to be done. It is not a mystery. What must be done?

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In the past I have supported similar efforts … Lieberman-McCain, Carper-Alexander.

This bill is much bigger.

He is very ambivalent about the bill, attracted to some parts, questions other parts.

We might significantly undermine our competitiveness.

The science is not up to speed with the requirements we are putting on industry.

we are putting the cart before the horse.

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This is not a Democrat issue, this is not a Republican issue, this is not a liberal issue, this is not a conservative issue.

It is a planetary issue, a moral issue.

One of the most consequential issues of this century

We cannot afford the option of inaction any longer.

Just this last week, the United States government issued report saying the climate change is affecting the nation’s ecosystem, causing water scarcity, reducing snowpack, increasing insect infestation and wildfires.

This debate is no longer a question of science. It is a question of our political will.

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Let’s do climate change the right way.I believe climate change is a real issue. I believe humans are contributing with it and we must deal with it.

Three things wrong with the bill:

1. Gasoline prices up $.50
2. That gasoline price won’t actually reduce any emissions.
3. Trillion dollar slush fund for Congress to spend on dubious projects

We need to return the money to the people.

It is too complicated and too expensive and overestimate the wisdom of Congress.

Is there a better way? Yes.

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[Missed his opening -- daughter duty.]

Climate change is driving droughts.

Climate change is contributing to food insecurity and helping to drive higher food prices now.

To do nothing on global warming would in my judgment be immoral.

Opponents keep pointing to gas prices. I have to ask them — frankly it won’t do that, over time it will bring down the cost of gasoline — if they are so concerned about gas prices, why don’t they support measures to provide relief to low-income families, a windfall profits tax. But it seems the other side just wants to talk about bringing gas prices down, but not actually do anything.

The Climate Security Act will reduce emissions.

CORKER REBUTTAL: This bill will cause gasoline prices to continue to rise. All we’re trying to do is cause this bill to be more pure.

We may need to address this issue, but not through this legislation.

This will make energy much more expensive for Americans…

I am an environmentalist, but I’m not a fear monger!

Hearings are not designed to get at the truth.

I suspect my constituents in Wyoming are not willing to pay the price of this bill.

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[I like Sheldon Whitehouse -- he gets my prize for best presentation today. Ah, now I see why he's so good -- he is married to Dr. Sandra Thornton Whitehouse, a marine biologist. As they say, behind every successful man ... is a very surprised woman.]

Whitehouse chose to focus on climate impacts and science.

Global warming is happening, it is man-made, and it’s getting worse.

He even showed a bell curve to say that science of the deniers is fringe science, low danger, but low likelihood, whereas the IPCC is serious damage and the most likelihood.

He also said that the opponents never talk about the other side of the curve, which is the possibility of very high damage. And he noted that recent observations tend to fall in the high damage end.

He then uses the global temperature data plotted gainst a trendline to debunked the notion that we haven’t been warming recently, by explaining how 1998 was an anomalously warm year driven by El Ni±o. [You go, Sheldon

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Lieberman points out that the NAM study, which conservatives have been relying on to attack the climate bill, uses EIA’s high oil price case to drive up costs for Lieberman Warner Bill. We heard this from EIA during the Bingaman hearing.

I believe EIA said NAM used EIA’s base case for their base case, and then the high oil price case for looking at the cost from the L-W bill, thus absurdly jacking up the bill’s conomic impacts — especially since if anything the bill is likely to drive down oil prices because it will drive down oil demand.

See also “Wrong Again 2: Delayers cry wolf with same old Garbage In, Garbage Out economic model.”

I am blogging relatively fast, so I apologize for any typos.

I do all of my writing with a voice-dictation software, Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 9.5. That means I tend to make different, unusual types of spelling mistakes. Words are rarely mistyped, but they are sometimes misheard or, rather, poorly pronounced. It is also tricky talking over the very audio that I am trying to report on.

Also, for some reason, the system has an occasional glitch dictating into WordPress — it sometimes drops the first letter of the first word I speak in a long phrase.

Still, it is a great piece of software and I recommend it to anybody.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the most prominent global warming denier in Congress, attacked the Lieberman-Warner climate cap-and-trade legislation now being debated on the Senate floor. Inhofe began his opinion piece by claiming this will be a vote on legislation that will raise gas prices that are already at record highs:

With average gas prices across the country approaching $4 a gallon, it may be hard to believe, but the U.S. Senate is considering legislation this week that will further drive up the cost at the pump.

In today’s New York Times, John M. Broder accepted Inhofe’s frame for the debate, beginning his article by claiming this will be a vote on legislation that will raise gas prices that are already at record highs:

The Senate on Monday opened a raucous debate over climate change legislation even though it will put supporters of the bill, including all three presidential candidates, on the spot — essentially forcing them to come out in favor of high energy costs at a time when American consumers are paying record fuel prices.

Describing the bill, “for better or worse,” as a “wrenching change,” Broder also engages in he-said she-said stenography throughout the piece, never once bothering to question the accuracy of the fears raised by climate deniers like Inhofe.

In his opinion piece, Inhofe falsely claims, “We are certain of the huge negative impact on the economy as detailed by numerous government and private analyses.” Broder copies down, “[M]any senators in both parties see the legislation as an expensive long-term plan that would do little to solve today’s energy supply and price problems.”

In his opinion piece, Inhofe writes, “Carbon caps will have an especially harmful impact on low-income Americans and those with fixed incomes.” Broder offers Inhofe an entire paragraph to shed his crocodile tears for poor Americans:

“Any action has to provide real protections for the American economy and jobs, and we must protect the American families,” said Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma. “Any action should not raise the cost of gasoline or energy to American families, particularly the low-income and elderly who are most susceptible to energy costs.”

As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities wrote today:

Some opponents of cap and trade legislation have claimed that such legislation is inherently harmful to low-income consumers. That claim is false.

It’s a pity Broder doesn’t seem to care about that.

UPDATE: Bill Scher at Blog for Our Future notes that National Public Radio called Bush-Exxon flak Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute an “environmental analyst” in its piece today, and criticizes John Broder for “giving a false impression that even bill supporters think fighting global warming is bad for consumers.”

UPDATE II: David Roberts at Gristmill writes that Broder’s “lamentable” piece shows “advocates for action on climate change have lost the framing battle.”

[Grassley is chosen to give the lamest conservative argument: Poor people, whom conservatives have never lifted a finger to help, would suffer under this bill. I guess they picked Grassley because he is the best at keeping a straight face. The only time conservatives care about poor people is during these types of debates, so may be is a good thing they've glommed in an extra 30 hours of debate.]

Household with limited incomes will be affected the most by this bill, according to Robert Greenstein [a person Grassley has never quoted in its entire life].

New energy-efficient equipment is expensive [and I choose to ignore the provisions in the bill to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help the poor adopt such technologies.]

Items that would be more costly for low-income families, including gas prices.

This would raise energy bills for the poorest fifth of Americans by $750 to $1,000 a year.

Oh, but now he launches into a tirade against all the new programs that would be launched, even though many of those programs are to ameliorate the costs to poor people and businesses that he was just complaining about.

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Here is a list of nearly 90 amendments that the opponents of serious action on climate change plan to offer.

The single greatest number of amendments (20) are to prop up nuclear power, which presumably reflects the priority of conservatives.

Sad!

Fossil fuels must be a key part of any clean energy future. [!!!]

We must not hurt the economy. According to a recent study by the National Association of Manufacturers, blah, blah, blah. [See "Wrong Again 2: Delayers cry wolf with same old Garbage In, Garbage Out economic model."]

High gas prices are a bigger problem in Wyoming because we rely on small refiners.

Wyoming coal would face a severe decline.

Energy prices in Wyoming would rise

Wyoming would lose all of its forests to bark beetles and fires if we don’t act, average temperatures might rise 10°F to 15°F , we’d lose ll snowpack in April, and we might have constant water shortages in the summer and fall — oh, sorry, that was me daydreaming.

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[Note -- Kerry is going through the current and projected impacts of climate change now. They are definitely useful remarks, but I have discussed them at length epeatedly and will not be blogging on his remarks.]

From Hill Heat:

Below is the schedule for the afternoon debate, as agreed to by universal consent before the lunch break. Between each speaker’s alloted time is five minutes for rebuttal from the opposing side. The times below depend, of course, on no additional delays be added to the schedule.

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This bill is about reducing carbon pollution that causes global warming.

It makes use of market mechanisms that we have used successfully before

Delay will require future greater sacrifices or possibly make it impossible to solve the problem on all.

This bill will take us to a new attitude and a new approach — in a positive way — to keep the cost of energy within the grasp of consumers and farmers.

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As I listen to this, it does seem like much more of a debate than usually occurs on the Senate floor. Boxer and Warner are getting time for mini-debates after each speaker, on certain key issues, like nuclear power.

So do tune in to C-SPAN2 on TV or online this afternoon if you can. My Stream of consciousness posting does not do it justice.

I do think that the pro-climate messaging could be better. I think the message repeated endlessly should be “we need to get off of fossil fuels as fast as possible by adopting clean, job-creating technology — or else gasoline prices are going to keep going up and we are going to be facing catastrophic climate outcomes.”

In other words, a future in which we use much less gasoline and generate much less pollution is inevitable. The only question is whether we make the transition with relatively little pain or with lots and lots of pain.

12:30 Thinks the bill’s targets are unattainable given current technology.

Intends to offer an amendment on emissions caps to match Bingaman-Specter [kind of pointless, the targets are similar, see here].

Another amendment with Cost-containment safety-valve amendment [that would be a deal-killer, I imagine, see A safety valve in Lieberman-Warner is senseless].

Another amendment on international competitiveness — must have restrictions on steel coming into the United States (presumably from countries that don’t have a cap), else the U.S. industry will disappear.

Maybe a pathway to the future for coal amendment.

BOXER — She laments that he would love to discuss amendments now but the minority have forced this pointless 30 hours of debate first.

LUNCHTIME!

[As I've blogged many times, I agree with his remarks on offsets (below).]

Corker: We need to take action on climate security AND energy security.

Worries that the European cap and trade system led them to import a lot of natural gas from undependable Russia.

Bill misses the mark.

American Public will be paying higher energy prices

This bill takes in trillions of dollars, transfers wealth of $6.7 trillion (based on a model price of $22 a ton of CO2 — he said carbon), but if we had the European price, that would be $13 trillion.

Then in a pre-prescribed way it spends it. It is the mother (and father) of all earmarks.

I don’t understand why it doesn’t take that money and return the money back immediately to the American public.

The bill tries to win support by giving money to special interest groups.

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