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McCain, Obama spar over energy in second presidential debate
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com, October 09, 2008From US foreign policy to global warming to a question about top domestic priorities, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain kept returning to major energy and environmental issues during Tuesday night's second presidential debate.
During the town hall-style debate in Nashville, Tennessee, the candidates tied US energy development to their solutions for an ailing economy and overseas challenges, putting Russia, Iran and some Middle Eastern energy exporters on notice that cutting US and European reliance on their oil is a top foreign policy priority.
"We can't simply drill our way out of the problem," Obama said, noting that the US has 3% of the world's oil reserves but consumes nearly 25% of global oil supply. "We're not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if the only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming," said the Illinois Democrat.
Energy would be his top priority, Obama asserted, ahead of health care and Social Security reform. And he pushed his proposed $150 billion program to help develop and commercialize alternative and renewable energy.
"Energy we have to deal with today," he said, "because you're paying $3.80 here in Nashville for gasoline and it could go up.
It's a strain on your family budget, but it's also bad for our national security, because countries like Russia and Venezuela and in some cases countries like Iran are benefiting from higher oil prices."
McCain said energy should be the focus of an economic stimulus program.
Offshore oil and natural gas drilling and building a fleet of new nuclear power plants are keys to jumpstarting the US economy, said the Arizona Republican.
"Energy independence is the way to do that. It's one of them," McCain said.
"Drilling offshore and nuclear power are two vital elements of that. I've been supporting those and I know how to fix this economy and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil and stop sending $700 billion a year overseas.
" Calling it "fundamental economics," McCain repeated his assertion that increasing oil exploration off the East and West Coasts will inject enough confidence in the global oil market to bring down oil prices.
"We've got to drill offshore, my friends, and we've got to do it now," he said. ENERGY IS 'THE ENGINE' McCain insisted the government can address top voter issues all at once, especially energy, despite concern about congressional wherewithal to address expensive big-ticket domestic items after just agreeing to a $700 billion financial bailout of US banking institutions.
Obama accused McCain of repeatedly voting against incentives for renewable fuels, and McCain emphasized the idea that he supports development of most domestic fuels, especially nuclear.
"We can work on nuclear power plants, build a whole bunch of them, create millions of new jobs," McCain said. "We can have all of the above: alternative fuels, wind, tide, solar, natural gas and clean-coal technology."
On the issue of climate change, McCain aggressively distanced himself from almost eight years of Bush administration opposition to mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and the industrial sector.
Still, neither McCain nor Obama discussed specific policy plans, including pending proposals to create programs that ratchet down emissions by putting a price on carbon dioxide, creating a system for trading pollution rights and encouraging electric utilities to retool and buy cleaner fuels.
"I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue," McCain said. "What's the best way to fix it? Nuclear power," he said.
"Nuclear power is safe and it's clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs, and I know we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel.
The Japanese, the British and the French do it. We can do it, too." Obama said he favors nuclear power as "one component" of an expanding overall energy mix.
Five million new jobs could be created in the energy sector if there's a sustained effort by the next president, he said.
"It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades," Obama said.
"We've got to understand this is a national security issue as well, and that's why we're going to have to make some investments."
The US and private sector will work closely to export innovative clean energy solutions to China and other developing countries, Obama said. Perhaps the toughest talk came in the area of foreign policy.
Some of the $700 billion sent overseas to oil-producing countries ends up in the hands of terrorists, said the candidates.
"If we can reduce our energy consumption through alternative energy so that Iran has less money," Obama said.
"If we can prevent them from importing the gasoline they need and the refined petroleum products they need, that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them."
Obama stuck to the same theme when discussing US-Russia relations. "Energy is going to be key in dealing with Russia," he said.
"If we can reduce our energy consumption, [then] that reduces the amount of petro-dollars they have to make mischief around the world."
Story by Joel Kirkland from Platts
-joel_kirkland@platts.com
Platts 08 10 08
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