A 'cap and trade' refresher
Posted: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 5:26 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Republicans
From NBC's James Rankin
Here’s a quick quiz: Who said the following?
"A cap-and-trade policy will send a signal that will be heard and welcomed all across the American economy, and the highest rewards will go to those who make the smartest, safest, most responsible choices."
President Obama? Henry Waxman? Nancy Pelosi?
Actually, that was candidate John McCain
, way back in May of 2008. Which is all the more interesting given former running mate Sarah Palin’s anti-cap-and-trade op-ed in today’s Washington Post. In her opinion piece, Palin berated Obama for creating a job-kiling “cap-and-tax dead end,” despite having run on a ticket that mostly supported similar policy goals.
But her running mate -- McCain -- was an ardent supporter of cap-and-trade legislation during his run for the presidency. He distinguished himself during the Republican primary as a candidate who took climate change seriously and openly criticized the Bush administration’s lukewarm stance on the issue.
Don’t count on him to automatically line up behind Obama, however. Earlier in the year, McCain had some harsh words of his own for the president’s plan, calling it a “giant government slush fund that will further burden our businesses and consumers.”
“I still believe that it is the time to address this critical international issue, but my vision for a cap-and-trade system is as a mechanism to lower greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, not as a revenue generator for the federal government,” said McCain.
At issue was Obama’s plan to auction off carbon credits to polluters. McCain instead prefers to distribute credits free of charge. The Waxman-Markey climate change bill that narrowly passed the House last month proposes to give away 70% of the available carbon credits while auctioning off the remaining 30%. As legislation begins to take shape in the Senate, it should be interesting to see where McCain comes down.
