PSA #5: Energy

Barack Obama on energy
John McCain on energy

It's a little harder to do this one point-by-point, because the two candidates' websites don't address exactly the same issues. I'm going to try though.

Gas Prices

Obama
He wants to provide short-term relief to American families by:
- enacting a windfall profits tax on the oil & gas industry in order to fund a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate for American families
- cracking down on energy speculation
- using oil from the strategic preserves to help bring down prices.

McCain
- He supports the current investigation Congress is conducting into energy speculation, and thinks we should punish any abuses that turns up. He also advocates reforming the laws governing the oil futures market so that they have the same degree of clarity and effectiveness as the laws governing stocks, bonds and other financial instruments.
- McCain opposes a windfall tax on oil companies.

Dependence on Foreign Oil

Obama
His goal is to save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined within the next 10 years, thus relieving us of the need to import oil from these sources. Obama would:
- increase fuel economy standards
- get 1,000,000 built-in-America plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015
- create a new $7,000 tax credit for purchasing alternative-fuel vehicles
- reduce the level of carbon in our fuel by 10% by 2020, and phase 60 billion gallons of biofuels into our fuel supply by 2030
- require oil companies to develop & use the 68 million acres of land (40 million of these are offshore) that they already hold leases for but do not drill on
- promote responsible domestic oil production strategies, including the identification of obstacles to drilling in the Bakken Shale formation, the Barnett shale formation, and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska

McCain
McCain is strongly committed to expanding domestic oil and natural gas exploration. He specifically advocates:
- maintaining current fuel economy standards, but doing a better job of enforcing them
- encourage the American auto industry to produce more efficient cars by creating a $5,000 tax credit for Americans who buy zero-emissions cars, with lower credits for low-emissions cars
- offering a $300 million prize for developing plug-in hybrid and fully electric cars with batteries that cost 30% of what the batteries for these cars currently cost
- drilling for oil on the Outer Continental Shelf
- he believes alcohol-based fuels (like ethanol) have great promise, and that flex-fuel vehicles should play a great role, but has no specific policies or programs targeted at these on his website. However, he does support the eradication of tariffs and price supports that benefit corn-based ethanol only.

Renewable Energy

Obama
Obama wants to create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future. He would:
- make sure we get 10% of our energy from renewable sources by 2012, and 25% by 2025
- weatherize 1,000,000 low-income homes each year
- develop and use clean coal technology
- prioritize the construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline
- implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050
- re-engage the U.S. in global discussions in climate change and establish the U.S. as a world leader on the issue

McCain
McCain would:
- invest $2 billion annually in clean coal technology to speed up its commercial availability
- build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030, with the goal of eventually building 100
- he thinks alternative low-carbon fuels like wind and solar are a good idea, but does not present a specific proposal for advocating their development and use.
- establish a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse emissions with a goal of reducing emissions by 60% of 1990 levels (66% of 2005 levels) by 2050
- establish higher energy standards for new government buildings, and retrofit older buildings to make them more efficient
- improve the national electricity grid

The bottom line:

Both candidates appear to have a serious interest in the issue. Both have quite a lot of detail on their websites about the policies and programs they would support, as well as their philosophical views on the issue.

There is some similarity between the candidates here -- both advocate tax credits for zero- and low-emissions cars, and both would encourage the U.S. auto industry to produce more efficient cars; both want to encourage domestic production of oil and natural gas, although Obama takes a more cautious approach than McCain; both see speculation on oil futures as a problem and would attempt to regulate it; both would invest more in clean coal technology.

There are also some key differences: Obama favors a windfall profits tax on the oil industry, while McCain opposes it; Obama favors raising fuel economy standards while McCain would leave them as-is; and while both favor a cap-and-trade system, Obama's goal is more ambitious.