« Join the Effort to Send Rove to Jail | Main | Quick Hits »

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Sierra Club Calls Out McCain on 'Energy Misses'

The Sierra Club is challenging John McCain on his energy policies and his campaign's behavior in recent days. They noted in a release that John McCain canceled a planned trip to Louisiana today—a trip during which he was slated to visit offshore drilling platforms and tout his misguided offshore drilling plan. The cancellation came amid a spill of some 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil into the Mississippi River, Following a collision of a tanker and a barge, the massive spill caused a slick approximately 12 miles long and closed a 29 mile stretch of the Mississippi River. In a statement, Cathy Duvall, Political Director of the Sierra Club, had this to say:

"It comes as no surprise that the McCain campaign blamed the cancellation of their trip to Louisiana on the weather. Apparently hundreds of thousands of gallons of spilled oil, dead fish, and oil-covered birds aren't ideal conditions for peddling a misguided plan for more offshore drilling. Unfortunately, the risk for such spills—and far worse—would only increase if John McCain and George Bush get their way and allow Big Oil to begin the 'exploitation' of our coasts.

"It's a shame that John McCain is going to miss the opportunity to see first-hand just how damaging an oil spill can be. 

"After going straight to Houston to tell Big Oil he was their new best friend, it looks like John McCain has decided to embark on a tour of our country's greatest energy misses. He's already been to Santa Barbara, he then told the people of Nevada how he wants to stick them with more than 70,000 tons of dangerous nuclear waste, and Lousiana was the site of the biggest offshore oil spill in our nation's history. Maybe next he'll visit Prince William Sound or Three Mile Island?"

The Sierra Club described some of McCain's recent campaign destinations this way:

McCain's Greatest Energy Misses Summer 2008 Tour

1. Houston, Texas—June 17
McCain announced his flip-flop on offshore drilling and received a standing ovation from the Big Oil fat cats that have given over $5 million to his campaign and the Republican National Committee. A 1979 offshore well blowout in the Bay of Campeche spilled more than 126,000,000 gallons of oil—coating beaches in Texas and Mexico with crude. 

2. Santa Barbara, California—June 24
McCain pushed his misguided offshore drilling plan at the site of a 1969 oil spill from an offshore well that coated the beaches of Santa Barbara with at least 3,234,000 gallons of oil.

3. Las Vegas, Nevada—June 25
John McCain went to Nevada to push his plans to build 100 new nuclear power plants and stick the residents of the state with more than 77,000 tons of highly dangerous nuclear waste at the unsafe and unproven Yucca Mountain site.

4. Louisiana—July 24 CANCELED 
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in more than 9,000,000 gallons of oil being spilled off-shore and at related facilities onshore. Louisiana is also the site of the nation's largest ever offshore oil spill, the 1967 Humble Oil spill that spewed at least 6,726,000 gallons of oil from an undersea pipeline. 

5. Prince William Sound, Alaska--???
The 1989 ExxonValdez disaster spilled 10,800,000 gallons of oil into the Pristine Waters of Prince William Sound. Mere months after the tragic spill, John McCain voted against requiring double-hull tankers. McCain also wants to appoint more Supreme Court justices like Alito and Roberts, who recently decided to cut ExxonMobil's punitive damages to just $500 million—the same amount the company paid former CEO Lee Raymond during his final year with the company.

6. Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania—???
Site of the nation's worst nuclear accident, 1979 partial meltdown of one of the station's two reactors.  John McCain wants to build 100 new nuclear reactors, a plan that by utilities' own estimates could cost AT LEAST $1 TRILLION. 

Click here to read more from the Sierra Club about the top three myths McCain and other Republicans like Steve Pearce and Darren White are spreading about offshore drilling.

Technorati Tags:

July 24, 2008 at 04:34 PM in 2008 General Presidential Election, Energy, Environment | Permalink

Comments

Welcome back. While you were away, Martin Heinrich came out in favor of lifting the moratorium so drilling can proceed on the outer continental shelf. See Tuesday's ABQ Journal. So will his position attacked by on this site?

Posted by: Jim Scarantino | Jul 24, 2008 8:54:07 PM

What about protecting our multi-billion dollar coastal economies?
The outer continental shelf is already stressed. Our oceans are already over extended. Our delicate oceans and coasts buffer climate change.
Because of the threat of climate change, humanity must turn away from burning more fossil fuels. The planet is choking on petroleum waste and discarded byproducts. It is not sustainable.

Visiting family in Las Cruces,I noticed so much corn being grown in the Mesilla Valley. The biofuel fever is wasting water and depleting soil. It is not sustainable. Strip mining the soil will fail because the corn/bio-fuel is grown using petroleum based fertilizers and chemicals.

Posted by: qofdisks | Jul 25, 2008 1:36:43 PM

Scarantino knows there are plenty of unworked leases out there for offshore drilling. We don't need to give out more until those are explored. Every respectable source agrees we can't drill our way out of this and Heinrich isn't saying we should. Funny how the R's won't let a drop of oil out of the petroleum reserve-something that WOULD lower prices pretty quickly.

Even T. Boone Pickins is on our side for the most part now. Go away drill addicts. Your days are numbered.

Posted by: Old Dem | Jul 25, 2008 3:34:19 PM

remember whale blubber? think of the extremes humans went to kill whales when all most all had been harvested in the atlantic. They would go clear down around cape horn to kill whales and drag the whale blubber back. They would be gone three years sometimes.
We are at that time again.

Posted by: | Jul 26, 2008 8:43:37 AM

Post a comment