Obama vs. McCain on gas drilling

This coming January we will have a new President. Who it is could have a significant impact on what is probably the hottest local issue currently: natural gas drilling. We would like to summarize the positions and records of the two major candidates to help evaluate what impact an Obama or McCain Presidency respectively might have on the fate of gas drilling in our area.

Superficially, Republican candidate John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have very similar positions on natural gas drilling. Both candidates advocate for the expansion of all sources of energy other than foreign oil, including not only natural gas but domestic oil, nuclear, clean coal (an oxymoron to our mind), ethanol, solar, wind and geothermal.

But there are distinctions between the two that could prove important. Though both say we should explore all avenues, they offer different specific support and have different voting records.

Three issues in particular give us clues as to the impact of their potential Presidencies: the extent to which the candidates emphasize renewable alternatives vs. fossil-fuel based alternatives; how aggressive their strategies are for limiting carbon emissions; and how strong they are likely to be in insisting on environmental protections.

Providing government incentives for developing sustainable alternatives would decrease the cost of those alternatives; imposing strict limits on carbon emissions would make fossil fuels less attractive to end users; and insisting on strong environmental protections would increase the cost of producing natural gas. All these would tend to make natural gas drilling less economically feasible and slow such activity in this area. Conversely, if no support is provided for sustainables, they will be more expensive, while looser controls on emissions would increase demand for fossil fuels and less environmental protection would make fossil fuels cheaper.

1. Support of sustainable alternatives. Both candidates have said they favor sustainable energy alternatives. Obama’s plan specifies an investment of $150 billion over 10 years that would include a long-term extension of the production tax credit for renewable energy and a doubling of federal research and development funds for clean energy. His goal is for renewables to supply 10 percent of the nation’s power by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025. Obama has voted in favor of incentives for solar and wind and against incentives for fossil fuels: in June of 2007, he voted to remove oil- and gas-exploration subsidies, and he is in favor of a windfall profit tax on the industry.

Though McCain’s plan states support for alternatives such as solar and wind, it neither gives specifics nor allocates money for them. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, McCain has voted 20 times against solar or renewable energy incentive bills. However, he does have specifics on nuclear energy; he calls for the production of 45 nuclear reactors by 2030.

McCain has voted to continue $13 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry and proposed an additional $3.8 billion in tax breaks for the five biggest companies.

2. Carbon emissions. Obama and McCain have an identical goal of bringing domestic greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020. Obama proposes to reduce emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, compared to McCain’s 60 percent.

Both support a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions. In such a system, companies would be allocated permits to emit a certain amount of carbon, and those that consumed less than their allocation could sell their surplus to companies that needed more. The main difference is that Obama believes the permits should be auctioned off; McCain thinks, at least initially, they should be given away, though he has said eventually they could be auctioned. The deterrent to carbon emission is obviously bigger if the permits must be paid for.

3. Environmental protections. Marcia Nehemiah’s column “You Choose” in our October 16 issue, which may be found online at riverreporter.com/issues/08-10-16/columns-hands.html , gives a detailed comparison of the two candidates’ records and stances on environmental issues. Suffice it to say here that Obama has a lifetime score of 96 on a scale from 0 to 100 from the League of Conservation Voters; McCain has a score of 26.

In sum, it appears that a President Obama would probably pursue policies that would tend to foster sustainable energy sources like wind and solar and provide greater protection to the environment. A President McCain would pursue policies that would promote nuclear energy and fossil fuels, while paying less attention to environmental costs.

Dr. Punnybone

A Nose Job