The first debate: McCain and Obama touch on the environment but fall short on details

Articles — By forcechange on September 26, 2008 9:11 pm

Here are my general observations from the first debate:  

While both candidates discussed the importance of energy policy and fighting climate change, these topics took a bit of a back seat to other issues, like the reform of government and foreign policy.  With that said, the following are the points of interest that I noticed in each candidate’s respective statements about the environment and energy:

Moderator Jim Lehrer, in the early part of the debate, asked the candidates (a number of times before he got an answer) what specific policies they would be willing to give up as a result of the $700 billion bailout that is currently being proposed by the government.  Sen. Obama answered that the shift towards alternative energy could be a place where delay would appropriate in order to pay for the bailout, indicating that “there may be individual components [of our energy policy] that we can’t do.”  McCain had a much broader answer, indicating that he could see “a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs.”  Presumably, this across the board spending freeze would include energy policy. 

Later in the debate, once the topics crossed over to foreign policy, Obama got into the importance of alternative energy in combating the rise of petro-states.  Obama noted that while we do need increased drilling, it is more important to build up alternative sources of energy, repeating the phrase T. Boone has now made famous, that “we can’t simply drill our way out of the problem.”  Obama also mentioned that in addition to “solar, wind, and biodiesel” we also need “nuclear energy [and] clean-coal technology.” 

Soon after this the candidates got into a snit over whether Obama has opposed reprocessing nuclear materials (which isn’t exactly correct) and whether McCain has opposed alternative energy, which also isn’t technically correct (although McCain has recently come under fire for this issue). However, McCain summed up his in-depth position on it by stating: “No one can be opposed to alternate energy.” 

We would note, however, there is a big difference between pushing a policy forward and not being opposed to it.  One doesn’t have to oppose a policy to make it fail.  A lack of support will have the same result.  Hopefully, the next debate will allow for a more in-depth discussion of each candidate’s energy policy, instead of a series of broad statements of support.

[A full transcript of the debate can be found here.]