Obama's plan for jobs on Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other coal producting states, and Obama's plan for dealing with the high cost of energy, including electricity generation.
An audiotape of an interview Barack Obama did in January 2008 with The San Francisco Chronicle has surfaced in the final days of the presidential campaign. On the tape Obama tells the interviewer how he will use environmenal laws to kill the Coal industry,
"so if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can ... It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."
Also says he's policy will cause price of electricity to skyrocket.
Now, why would Obama say that in San Francisco and not Pennsylvania? We've seen him do that before, right? Something about guns and religion.
And why did Newsweek take their story on the Pennsylvania campaign down Sunday after this story broke?
FactChecking McCain
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More Oily Words
We found other exaggerations in McCain's claims about his plan for energy independence:
McCain: We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much.
In fact, the U.S. doesn't pay nearly that much for oil from hostile nations. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. imported 4.9 billion barrels of oil in 2007. At today's prices, that works out to about $536 billion, still a hefty chunk of change, but considerably less than $700 billion. More important, that's what we pay to all exporting nations, not just those that "don't like us very much." We note that 32 percent of U.S. oil imports came from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Just Wind
McCain also made sweeping claims about green energy that aren't actually backed up by his policy proposals:
McCain: We will attack the problem on every front. ...We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.
McCain has been quite specific about his proposals to clear the way for building 45 new nuclear power plants, opening offshore areas to oil drilling and spending $2 billion a year for so-called "clean coal" technology. He has also proposed a $300 million prize for developing the first practical plug-in electric car, although General Motors already is working on that and is aiming for delivery of the Chevrolet Volt by 2010, prize or no prize. McCain has also proposed a $5,000 tax credit for consumers who purchase zero emission vehicles
But when it comes to power from wind and tide, McCain's words are blowing in the breeze. His energy plan, which he calls the Lexington Project, proposes no new spending for renewable energy programs. Instead, he proposes to "rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits," but hasn't said what he means by that. As we've written before, spokespeople for the wind and solar industries are unsure what this actually means. Finally, we'll note that McCain himself told supporters at a July town hall meeting that he doesn't think that renewable energy is likely to be "as much of the solution as some people think." Perhaps not, but if McCain is right his own words are contributing to the public misperception.
Pig in a Poke
McCain repeated his vague promise to make spending cuts:
McCain: Reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs will let you keep more of your own money to save, spend and invest as you see fit.
McCain has not said which programs he considers to be "failed programs." He thus makes the spending cuts sound less painful than they will be should he fulfill his previously stated promise to balance the federal budget by 2013 while also making all Bush tax cuts permanent and adding new cuts of his own. McCain repeated his promise to eliminate "earmarks" from federal spending bills, saying "the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it." That drew applause, but the fact is that earmarks amount to only $16.9 billion in the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the deficit is expected to be more than $200 billion in 2009. And McCain's tax cuts will add billions more to future deficits unless offset by spending cuts, which he so far has not been willing to identify. What would he cut?
A McCain adviser, former CBO chairman Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has said that McCain "will provide the leadership to achieve bipartisan spending restraint" and "will perform a comprehensive review of all programs, projects and activities of the federal government" to find programs to cut or eliminate. But that, of course, will come after people have cast their votes.
Trade Talk
McCain said, "I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them."
McCain may be alluding to Obama's threat earlier this year to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico and Canada won't open the deal to renegotiation. Obama said at a Democratic primary debate in Cleveland in February:
Discuss