Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the “the grandfather among Republicans on climate change,” may be changing sides at least with respect to the Waxman-Markey bill, according to Energy & Environment Daily.
According to the report,
Asked about the Senate debate [on Waxman-Markey], McCain said only, “I hope it’s vastly different than the House bill.”
McCain also rationalizes that his criticism does not conflict with his earlier efforts. “It says I’ve had good bills, and this is a lousy one,” he said.
But the Republican’s stance has launched a guessing game of which McCain will take part in this year’s debate…
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) also expects McCain to get more involved when the legislation ripens. But when he does, Voinovich expects McCain to have a different take than many expect. “I think he probably has a much better appreciation of the impact all this has on various sections of the country because he ran a presidential campaign. Up until that, I don’t think there were a lot of things he was aware of.”
This would indeed be a good time for McCain to redeem his embarrassing performance during last fall’s campaign.
If John McCain had run on a sound energy policy, he may have been elected president. He made statemets he believed carbon dioxide from fossil fuels caused global warming and drilling for oil in ANWR was the same as drilling for oil in the Grand Canyon. Thus, we had no difference between him and President Obama on energy policy. The country needed leadership on energy policy; we had none.