McCain's Incoherence on Global Warming Reaches New Heights

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain said he does not support the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill, and would not show up to vote on it next week. From the Washington Post:

In a press conference late Wednesday afternoon, McCain said he did not support the bill sponsored by two of his closest allies, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) because it doesn't offer enough aid to the nuclear industry, and he would not come to the floor to vote on it.

Three weeks ago, he had a different view. From Time Magazine's Swampland:

McCain, who teamed up with Lieberman on earlier versions of the bill, has been cagey up until now. He's set to give a big speech on climate change Monday in Oregon, but tipped his hand at a press conference in New Jersey today. With Lieberman at his side, McCain was asked about the climate bill. "I hope it will pass," he said, "and I hope the entire Congress will join in supporting it and the President of the United States would sign it."

This is incoherence on top of incoherence.

It's a bizarre decision on policy grounds. The Lieberman-Warner bill is completely in sync with the incoherent set of principles McCain laid out this month -- good in supporting a cap on emissions, bad in failing to make corporations fully pay for polluting public sky, and depriving us of resources to invest in renewable energy and mitigate any consumer price increases.

Further, his complaint about nuclear subsidies is exponentially incoherent. A nuclear subsidy package is expected to be added to the bill -- though McCain apparently won't be around to vote on it. And as noted before, McCain's support for nuclear subsidies contradicts his claim that he opposes all subsidies.

It's also politically incoherent. McCain's support for doing something on global warming was his best bet for making the claim that he is not like President Bush. Now he risks throwing that away.

I won't speculate on what McCain is thinking. Because it is so incoherent, I truly don't understand.

Cross-posted at the Campaign for America's Future blog.

Follow Bill Scher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billscher

Comments

[realpolitic]

Now McCain does not back this global warming bill. To win the republican nomination, one must become a shadow of his former self.

[XME]

My guess is that when Chris Matthews first asked him how his views differ from Bush, it put him on the spot, and climate change was the first and only thing he could come up with! So, he had to use that when campaigning...but not that he has to put his vote where his mouth it, the truth is coming out that he doesn't really give a cr@p about it and doesn't want to PO coservatives and lobbiests by voting for it so is going to flip-flop with some bogus claim that will allow him to continue to claim on the campaign trail that her "honestly" cares about it. McCain is not more trustworthy or believable than his mentor, Bush.

[UnbiasView]

Call the cap and trade bill what it is: another tax increase on the American people.

Businesses will pay the tax and guess who they'll pass it on to? I'm sure glad that congress has a solid plan to add to the more costs to the already rising cost of energy.

[realpolitic]

McCain said he opposed the bill because it did not offer subsidies to the nuclear energy industry, not because of some fictional tax on Americans in the minds of anti-envir­onmentalis­ts and science debunkers!!

Please change your name to biased view or pointless view. How about uninformed view?

[Marlyn]

It seems to me that the obvious explanation would be that McCane will serve the highest bidder. Don't look for coherent policy. That is not what drives John McCane. For him, it is all about the lobbyists. Remember Hillary's remark, "Lobbyists are Americans too."

[PuppaX]

What happened? Did he just get a new nuclear-energy lobbyist on his campaign staff?