John McCain and Barack Obama are hammering each other on energy policy for a second week.
With McCain campaigning in California today, Obama and the Democrats are happily pointing out that the last time he ran for president in 1999-2000, he told Golden State voters that he supported a ban on offshore oil drilling -- and that his change in position last week puts him out of step with a passel of the state's political leaders, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican.
Democrats also accuse McCain of being less-than-pristine on alternative energy and fuel efficiency in the past, and of political pandering for continuing to support a summer gas tax holiday.
"The question is whether we are going to offer the American people real answers and genuine relief or the same, tired Washington gimmicks and special interest favors that have failed our families and country for too long," the Obama campaign said in a statement. "With his proposal to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling that, as even the McCain campaign admits, wouldn’t produce any increase in resources for years and his gas tax gimmick that economists agree wouldn’t significantly reduce the price of gas if at all, John McCain has chosen to offer more of the same instead of change."
McCain and Republicans, meanwhile, are arguing that Obama is willing to let consumers suffer with no relief in sight. They also accuse Obama of being beholden to the ethanol industry, citing a New York Times story today that documents the ties of some advisers and key supporters. And McCain is promoting his energy security plan -- which also emphasizes nuclear power as a way to wean the country from foreign oil -- in a new Internet video.
“Barack Obama has a do-nothing energy policy, which opposes increasing American energy exploration, opposes a break on summertime gas taxes and opposes incentives that will develop an electric car solution faster," Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, said in a statement. "Senator Obama’s only answer has nothing to do with supply and demand, but focuses on closing Bill Clinton’s ‘Enron Loophole’ which John McCain has worked to close since 2003. Barack Obama is doing nothing for American families struggling at the pump, and the fact is that Senator Obama’s do-nothing approach won’t help America kick its dangerous addiction to foreign oil.”
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