Factcheck.org: McCain Ad a Full Tank of Nonsense | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008

FACTCHECK.ORG
Bluegrass Gasoline Blues
Jess Henig 8/4/2008 12:00:00 AM
AnalysisIn his ad titled "Gas Tax" and an accompanying Web site, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky takes a page out of John McCain's playbook, focusing blame for high fuel prices on one individual – his opponent, Bruce Lunsford.
PROJECT GREEN
The Lure of Black Gold
Jamie Reno 8/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
Offshore oil drilling is at the center of an intensifying national debate over how the government should address the current energy crisis, and it's lately become a front-burner issue on the presidential campaign trail. Presumptive nominees Barack Obama and John McCain have been divided on the issue—Obama was against more drilling, McCain has lately come out in favor of it—but just today, Obama qualified his position, telling a Florida newspaper he'd be open to allowing limited offshore drilling if that's what it takes to pass a more comprehensive energy plan, including support for alternative energy and more fuel-efficient cars. Until recently, coastal states had taken a "not in my backyard" approach to offshore drilling. But that's beginning to change, now that gas prices are hovering at or above $4 per gallon. In Florida, 60 percent of voters now support drilling off their coasts. Perhaps more surprising, a majority in eco-conscious California is also willing to tap waters off the state's shorelines. Ever since the devastating Unocal oil spill in the waters off Santa Barbara in 1969, there was a relatively unified opposition to new drilling in the state. But a just-released survey by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, shows a slim but surprising majority (51 percent) of Californians now favoring more offshore drilling, while 45 percent now oppose it.
PROJECT GREEN
’69 Flashback
Jamie Reno 7/16/2008 12:00:00 AM
The notion of new offshore drilling isn't going down well in Santa Barbara, Calif., the idyllic seaside community 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles that has often been called the birthplace of the modern environmental movement. Longtime residents still talk about the oil rig spill in January 1969 that left 35 miles of coastline covered with black goo and caused severe environmental damage. The disastrous spill, which gained worldwide attention, spurred the creation less than a year later of the Environmental Protection Agency by the Nixon administration and passage of the Clean Air Act.
FACTCHECK.ORG
A False Accusation About Energy
Emi Kolawole 7/9/2008 12:00:00 AM
And while the ad correctly says that Obama is against lifting the gas tax and against more production "here at home" (read: lifting the federal ban on more offshore oil drilling), neither of those steps is likely to be a "solution" for the problems at hand.
FACTCHECK.ORG
McCain's Power Outage
Viveca Novak 6/20/2008 12:00:00 AM
He has soft-pedaled the "cap" portion of his cap-and-trade proposal for greenhouse gases, even denying that it would be a mandate. The cap is a mandatory limit, however, and McCain even says so on his Web site.
Let’s Shoot the Speculators!
Robert J. Samuelson
Tired of high gasoline prices and rising food costs? Well, here's a solution. Let's shoot the "speculators." A chorus of politicians, including John McCain, Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Lieberman, blames these financial slimeballs for piling into commodities markets and pushing prices to artificial and unconscionable levels. Gosh, if only it were that simple. Speculator-bashing is another exercise in scapegoating and grandstanding. Leading politicians either don't understand what's happening or don't want to acknowledge their complicity.