By insisting on including federal aid for nuclear power, John McCain may have made his latest climate-change plan more palatable to Republicans. But he may also have made it less likely that anything that looks like his plan will emerge from the Senate.
In a speech in Portland this afternoon, McCain outlined his plans for a “cap and trade” policy he would pursue as president, in which the government would set limits on total carbon emissions and companies would work out between themselves how much they could generate. This is one of the biggest issues on which McCain parts ways with most Republicans. But he included one concession that might make the plan go down easier with at least some conservatives: incentives to expand the use of nuclear power.
“We must consider every alternative source of power, and that includes nuclear power,” McCain said in his speech. “Here we have a known, proven energy source that requires exactly zero emissions ... It doesn’t take a leap in logic to conclude that if we want to arrest global warming, then nuclear energy is a powerful ally in that cause.”
Nuclear power is considered the only carbon-free energy source that could provide the kind of power big cities need, but its critics contend that its expense, the potential dangers involved, and the waste storage problems make it an unattractive option. Many experts say the only way to make it work is to have government share in the risk, as CQ’s Rebecca Adams wrote last year.
And unless the current balance of power in the Senate changes drastically next year – with just the right combination of pro-nuclear Democrats and moderate Republicans to make a working a majority – a President McCain would lose enough votes in both parties that he’d have a hard time getting his version of a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate.
Three years ago, McCain and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut included subsidies for nuclear power in a cap-and-trade amendment to an energy bill. It was soundly defeated, winning just 38 votes. That was largely because of Republican opposition, but partly because the nuclear provision also cost them a handful of Democratic votes – including Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, now the chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
“The nuclear industry is once again knocking on Uncle Sam’s door asking for Federal subsidies to pad their bottom line,” Boxer said during the floor debate on the amendment. ”Nuclear power is not the solution to climate change, and it is not ‘clean.’ . . . By subsidizing the creation of new nuclear plants, we are condoning the creation of more waste and turning a blind eye to the hazards associated with nuclear power.”
Nevertheless, McCain says he wants similar incentives in this year’s Senate bill, which is being sponsored by Lieberman and Republican Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia. McCain hasn’t said yet whether he will come back and vote for the bill when it comes to the floor next month.
Lieberman and Warner didn’t include the nuclear subsidies in this year’s bill because “they would not have survived the committee,” said David Sandretti of the League of Conservation Voters. Republican Sens. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma and Johnny Isakson of Georgia tried to add nuclear power incentives in the committee in December, but all of their amendments were defeated, with both Warner and Lieberman joining the Democrats to vote them down.
There was one prominent Democrat, however, who wasn’t bothered by the nuclear provisions in the 2005 McCain amendment. ”This bipartisan approach to addressing climate change is not only good environmental policy, it is good economic policy,” this senator said during the floor debate.
Any guesses? That’s right – it was Barack Obama.
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