John McCain: aka ‘Mr. Green,’ aka ‘Mr. Enviro,’ aka ‘Mr. Energy’

I just talked to a reporter who reported that the McCain spinmeisters have come up with the line of lines: “John McCain owns the issues of energy and the environment.”

What?

Over the last week we have seen a plan from a candidate who is flip-flopping all over the place, pandering all the while. A summer gas tax holiday that wouldn’t even put $30 in people’s pockets; a $300 million “reward” for car batteries that the car companies and many well-respected firms are already working on; drilling offshore (oops — no oil until at least 2017); a $1.2 billion tax giveaway to Exxon. McCain claims it is the “psychological effect” that he is pursuing. Sorry, John, but that doesn’t fill my tank and it sure as heck doesn’t solve the long-term problem of energy.

John McCain has been against offshore drilling (against it before he was for it) and says he is still against drilling in Alaska. He used to say we have only 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves and that the coastline, and tourism, and preserving our fish and wildlife weren’t worth that drilling for such a small amount of oil.

More importantly, McCain voted numerous times against efforts to provide tax incentives for alternative energy sources, yet he believes the oil companies deserve $14 billion in subsidies. That is pretty expensive pork barrel for your friends in Houston, Mr. McCain. Especially when you voted NO on $290 million (that is M … million) for research and development on renewable energy.

And you are the energy candidate, John McCain? Not when Barack Obama has a record of supporting alternative energy, and has a $150 billion (yes, that is B … billion) plan over the next 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and renewable energy. Energy independence — it’s more than just a slogan for Barack Obama.

We have had the Texaco Twins in the White House for the past seven and a half years. John McCain will answer to his newfound friends in Houston the same way. And it has done so much for us over these last few years, why change?

If John McCain is the energy and environment candidate, the tooth fairy is back in business.