Too funny.

The scary thing is that her proposal is very similar to the bipartisan Group-of-10 energy compromise.

Our guest bloggers are Daniel J. Weiss and Alexandra Kougentakis, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy and a Fellows Assistant at the Center For American Progress Action Fund.

During a teleconference today, McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said, “Washington is broken and John McCain wants to fix that.” He told reporters that McCain “has a comprehensive approach” to clean renewable energy.

But there’s a problem with Holtz-Eakin’s argument. It ignores McCain’s record. On December 13, 2007, McCain opposed an effort to provide a multi year extension for the very clean energy tax credits that Mr. Holtz-Eakin described. By a vote of 59-40, the Senate failed to get 60 votes necessary to end debate and pass the pending Energy Independence and Security Act that included the following clean energy tax incentives:

• extend the production tax credit for wind and geothermal energy for two years
• extend the investment tax credit for solar power for eight years
• extend the tax credit for efficiency measures in residences for six years
• extend the tax credit for efficiency measures in commercial buildings for five years
• create a consumer tax credit for the purchase of a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle for ten years.

Of the five senators then running for president, McCain was the only one to miss the vote. Since the extension of the tax credits failed by a single vote, his support would have enabled them to pass. After the vote, his spokesperson said that McCain “would not have supported breaking the filibuster.”

He also skipped a June 21, 2007 vote that would have extended these clean energy tax incentives for even longer. It failed by a vote of 58-35, with 60 votes necessary to end debate and pass the bill. (Senate Majority Leader Reid switched his vote to “no” at the last minute to preserve his right to call for a revote.) All the other Senators running for President (except one) voted for the tax extension. Read more

Hunter Lovins is one of the country’s premier prophets of the prosperity we can achieve if we move quickly to establish a post-carbon economy. Vast new markets and investment opportunities are opening worldwide for clean technologies. “Those who recognize this opportunity will be the first to the future and the billionaires of tomorrow,” Hunter says.

The good news: The race already has begun. It’s producing some new billionaires and attracting some old ones.

The first recorded solar billionaire was identified by the Wall Street Journal in October 2006. He is Shi Zhengrong, founder of Suntech Power Holdings Company in China. Since then, at least two other solar entrepreneurs have joined the club: Frank Asbeck, who founded Germany’s Solar World, and Xiao Peng, head of LDK Solar in China.

Joining them are two American tycoons who have decided that while their past was in oil, their future — and America’s — will be found in renewable energy: Read more

Has any presidential nominee in history — has any potential leader of any country in the world — ever campaigned by mocking energy efficiency and conservation?

Once McCain was a lonely voice in the conservative movement pushing real action on global warming and opposing phony solutions like offshore drilling. True, like most conservatives he opposed and still opposes incentives and standards for renewables as well as levels of vehicle fuel economy needed to actually move us toward energy independence. And yes, McCain along with his energy and climate advisers have walked away from serious policy in recents months (see links below).

But McCain now sees his only road to the White House as lying again and again to the American public:

“We need to off-shore drill for oil and natural gas,” McCain said, “And anybody who says we can achieve energy independence without using and increasing these existing energy resources either doesn’t have the experience to understand the challenge we face or isn’t giving the American people some straight talk.

There is no truth whatsoever in that statement. The amount of offshore oil currently unavailable for drilling is negligible and even Bush’s own energy analysts admit that. The amount of offshore natural gas currently unavailable for drilling is not a substitute for oil now and never will be. Anyone who claims otherwise doesn’t have the experience to understand the challenge we face and isn’t giving the American people some straight talk.

But even more destructive to any hope of serious national discourse on our energy and climate problem is this:

“We’re not going to achieve energy independence by inflating our tires,” McCain said.

Aside from the fact that nobody on the planet ever said that, in fact, we cannot possibly solve our energy and climate problems without such efficiency measures.

Read more

In eastern Pennsylvania yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repeatedly argued, “We need to drill here and we need to drill now.” His invocation of the slogan of Newt Gingrich’s right-wing 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), was coupled with the following call for Congress to “come back to town and come back to work”:

Congress should come back into session, and I’m willing to come off the campaign trail.

McCain’s call for action on behalf of Big Oil and right-wing billionaires hardly jibes with his record of absenteeism on major votes. In fact, McCain has been on the campaign trail and fundraising circuit a tremendous amount this session, missing far more votes than any other member of Congress. His vacation from his elected duty has included some of the most important legislation considered by Congress:

– 4/26/07: Iraq War funding (passed 51-46)

– 6/7/07: Immigration reform (filibustered 34-61)

– 6/11/07: Condemning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (filibustered 53-38)

– 7/26/07: Homeland Security (passed 85-8)

– 8/3/07: Wiretapping (FISA) authorization (passed 60-28)

– 9/27/07: Children’s health insurance (passed 69-30; vetoed)

– 2/6/08: Stimulus package with support for renewable energy (filibustered by one vote)

– 4/23/08: Fair Pay Act (filibustered 56-42)

– 5/22/08: The 21st-Century GI Bill (passed 75-22)

– 6/6/08: Global warming legislation (filibustered 48-36)

Voteskipper McCain shirked votes supporting renewable tax credits four times this session, letting them be filibustered every time. Twice the bill was blocked by a single vote. In the past month alone, he missed every single energy vote brought to the floor. Sen. McCain stayed on the campaign trail while his conservative allies filibustered each proposal — on energy speculation, low-income heating bills, and renewable energy and energy efficiency incentives — and he drilled for cash from the oil industry.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) already laid down the challenge to McCain and his conservative colleagues:

So if they want to stay here and work during the August recess, it’s fine with us. I’m not sure it’s fine with the Republican senators who have these challengers with them. But we’re here. I have no problem. If they — if they think that it’s going to hurt us in any way, I’m not concerned at all, because it won’t hurt us one bit.

Digg it!

(H/T Bill Scher)

UPDATE: Obama spokesman Bill Burton released this statement: Read more

The nation’s top climate scientist has visited some of “countries that are among the best-educated on climate change” and come away disappointed. For real disappointment, though, imagine what happens when climate scientists from those countries visit America.

The whole report is worth reading, with many fascinating nuggets. Hansen joins the cavalcade of experts who thoroughly debunks the notion that changs in solar irradiation are responsible for global warming trend in recent decades. But I want to excerpt here is analysis on coal, including a terrific figure he has that I am extracting from his PDF:

What the figure makes clear is that from the climate perspective, the problem is coal (without carbon capture and storage). If you want to restrain or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you need to cut coal emissions. Here is what Hansen says about the figure and its implication for policy:

Read more