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McCain Turns Back On Clean Energy

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By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN New York Times News Service@

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 15, 2008

John McCain recently tried to underscore his seriousness about pushing through a new energy policy, with a strong focus on more drilling for oil, by telling a motorcycle convention that Congress needed to come back from vacation immediately and do something about America's energy crisis. "Tell them to come back and get to work!" McCain bellowed.

Sorry, but I can't let that one go by. McCain knows why.

It was only five days earlier, July 30, that the Senate was voting for the eighth time in the past year on a broad, vitally important bill - S. 3335 - that would have extended the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems.

Both the wind and solar industries depend on these credits - which expire in December - to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal, oil and natural gas. Unlike offshore drilling, these credits could have an immediate impact on America's energy profile.

McCain did not show up for the crucial vote July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year - which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn't leave his office to vote.

"McCain did not show up on any votes," said Scott Sklar, president of The Stella Group, which tracks clean-technology legislation. Despite that, McCain's campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines - the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize.
Barack Obama did not vote July 30 either - which is equally inexcusable in my book - but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the renewable-energy legislation.

The fact that Congress has failed eight times to renew them is largely because of a hard core of Republican senators who either don't want to give Democrats such a victory in an election year or simply don't believe in renewable energy.

What impact does this have? In the solar industry today there is a rush to finish any project that would be up and running by Dec. 31 - when the credits expire - and most everything beyond that is now on hold. Consider the Solana concentrated solar power plant, 70 miles southwest of Phoenix in McCain's home state. It is the biggest proposed concentrating solar energy project ever. The farsighted local utility is ready to buy its power.

But because of the Senate's refusal to extend the solar tax credits, "we cannot get our bank financing," said Fred Morse, a senior adviser for the American operations of Abengoa Solar, which is building the project. "Without the credits, the numbers don't work." Some 2,000 construction jobs are on hold.

Thomas Friedman is a columnist for The New York Times.

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