Politics: New National Network Media Buy Tells McCain to Stop Pushing Pork for Corporate Polluters Friends of the Earth Action's ads to air across the country on TV and online through Earth Day Published on Apr 16, 2008 - 7:53:09 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 15, 2008 - Senator John McCain's support for billions of dollars of handouts to corporate polluters is the focus of a new, pre-Earth Day national network media buy from Friends of the Earth Action.
The national environmental group will run TV ads across the country and on the web asking McCain to stop trying to add billions of dollars of subsidies for the nuclear industry to the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill. The bill is already a trillion-dollar giveaway for corporate polluters.
"It is outrageous for Senator McCain to portray himself as tough on spending and as a friend of the environment, and then go out and push all this pork for corporate polluters. That's not straight talk," said Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth Action. "Instead of adding more pork for the nuclear industry, Senator McCain should be trying to cut the fat that's already there."
Blackwelder noted that McCain's opponents in the presidential campaign, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have voiced support for a different approach to global warming -- a cap-and-trade system that makes polluters pay for their pollution via a 100 percent auction of pollution permits. When the Lieberman-Warner bill came before the Senate's environment and public works committee in December, Clinton offered an amendment to eliminate many of its giveaways by adding 100 percent auctions to the bill. Obama has spoken of his support for 100 percent auctions as a key difference between himself and McCain.
McCain's attempt to add more polluter pork to the global warming bill is hardly the only recent strike against his environmental record. He also failed to show up for two votes within the last six months that would have promoted clean energy solutions such as wind and solar power; each of those measures failed by a one-vote margin, and the other presidential candidates showed up to vote.
"There is a wide gulf between McCain and the Democratic candidates on environmental issues and global warming," Blackwelder said. "These ads are calling attention to that gulf with the hope of persuading McCain to start taking the legislative actions that are logically required to erase it. Opposing polluter giveaways in the Lieberman-Warner bill would be a good first step."
