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Elizabeth Grossman: McCain and Palin’s Environmental Policies
September 2nd, 2008 by Elizabeth Grossman“I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can’t drill our way out of our problem,” says Alaska Governor Sarah Palin – What his VP pick says about McCain’s environmental policy
Upon learning that Senator John McCain had chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his vice-president my immediate thoughts were: 1) oil, 2) the New York Times photograph of a polar bear swimming in the Chukchi Sea, apparently heading towards the nearest ice some 400 miles away, and 3) what choosing Governor Palin says about a McCain administration’s energy, environmental and science policies.
The news media has immediately focused on Governor Palin’s personableness, her experience, strong “pro-life” position, NRA membership, and efforts to reform Alaska’s government corruption. Here are some other notes to consider:
With Arctic Sea ice at its lowest point since measurements began – scientists assessing Arctic conditions say what’s happening indicates we’re moving past the point of no return – under Governor Palin the State of Alaska filed suit against the Department of the Interior to stop the Endangered Species Act listing of polar bears. Alaskans don’t need other places telling us what to do, says Palin. Although she’s fished commercially, she supports the Pebble Mine – what would be North America’s largest open pit copper and gold mine – that would threaten Bristol Bay’s wild sockeye salmon run, the largest in the world.
Palin established a sub-cabinet committee on climate change but doesn’t believe global warming is caused by humans. She strongly favors oil and gas drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and has called the area under consideration “flat and barren.” Those opposed to drilling in ANWR (a group that would include former President Jimmy Carter), she labeled “extremists.” A Wall Street Journal column called her “penchant” for increased oil and gas exploration “even bigger than John McCain’s.” And in July, Palin told Investor’s Business Daily, “I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can’t drill our way out of our problem….” Palin is eager to see to see oil extraction in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas – areas now literally on the front lines of climate change. She’s been praised for standing up to big oil companies. What this entails, however, is negotiating better deals for Alaska, a state whose economy depends on oil revenue.
Palin voices respect for animals but opposed a bill that would ban aerial hunting of wolves - a practice authorized under her administration’s predator control policy, which includes killing of grizzly and black bear mothers and cubs, and bear-baiting – previously not allowed in Alaska. In September 2007, dozens of scientists signed a letter to Palin, protesting these practices and urging her to re-examine the biological and ecological basis of Alaska’s predator control programs. As for science in a McCain administration, if his VP has a say as she did during her gubernatorial campaign, it would support teaching creationism alongside of evolution.
There are hard questions about energy and environment to be asked of Obama and Biden but Biden’s League of Conservation Voters ratings ranged from 88 to 96% until missed votes lowered his 2007 score to 67%. McCain’s average score is just shy of 28%. It was 0 in 2007 when he missed every environmental vote – including bills to increase energy efficiency and consider global warming’s impact on water resources (all bills Biden and Obama voted for). Meanwhile Obama’s first term rated 96% and like Biden dropped to 67% due to missed votes last year.
Governor Palin may bring fresh personal energy to the McCain ticket and she clearly relishes time in the great outdoors, but her record does not signal a fresh policy direction for Republicans on energy or the environment.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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Elizabeth Grossman is the author of High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I am pretty well appalled at McCain’s choice of Palin – the criticisms seem to keep piling up. Neither campaign is talking enough about the global warming crisis (not that one would expect McCain’s camp to do so anyway). A person like Palin cannot be put one step away from the presidency. Unfortunately I think there are many people like Palin in this country for whom the global warming crisis is still a lefty-myth and value the short term drilling solution over long-term plans. The Obama campaign needs to make this a much bigger issue than it has, stop worrying about Palin’s “lack of experience,” and start pressing her on the effects her policies would have on this country and the planet.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:06 pm
If what Elizabeth Grossman writes re Palin is an accurate reflection of her worldview, then that’s scarey! If there is no environmental and human health, other issues become mute. Oh, for an environmentally wise Republican candidate who embraces science, or for a Democratic candidate who values human life and values. How is one to vote?
September 4th, 2008 at 9:17 am
It has been a fact for a very long time that the US has been getting the cheapest possible sources of oil. This is only monetary and not taking into account wars, corruption and environmental disasters which are also facts. Now that Alaska oil is a big topic I am amazed to have not heard about the vulnerability of Alaska pipe lines, oil spills from ship transport south from Valdez and hazards of drilling in permafrost. All this and it would take up to ten years to start new oil production if “wild cat” wells were started tomorrow. And then the biggest single oil user would have to be the US military. We do also consume more oil than any other country.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:45 am
My concern and why I think McCain selected Palin is that she is a “regular” citizen without “expert” credentials. It seems that to be popular with voters, one must not be seen as being too smart or an expert. This anti-intellectualism connects directly with voters who also don’t think science can offer guidance on developing public policy. So a candidate that believes in creationism, thinks population control is not an issue (demonstrated with her own family size), and that we can drill our way out of the energy & climate crisis, will be embraced by those who want a “regular” citizen who disregards expert advice. Let’s hope that folks who see the value of educated people’s advice go to the polls in November.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
McCain’s choice of Palin creates a ticket that suggests a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policies. Both want to drill, with Palin including drilling ANWR as a no-brainer. Palin’s doubt that global warming is human-caused suggests a possible continuation of censoring scientific reports. She is likely to object to stopping economic development to protect threatened or endangered species, given her views on the challenges polar bears face.
The Bush years have been anti-environmental and pro-energy comapnies. While McCain has expressed less monolithic views, it is clear he feels he must cater to the same groups that were instrumental in supporting Bush. While Obama goes beyond what I think we can afford when it comes to alternative fuels, he is clearly more supportive of environmental consideration.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
McCain’s choice of Palin reveals much: It tells us that he will ignore hypocrisy, cave to religious conservatives, reject science, and pursue antiquated and destructive energy and environmental policies as the “cost of doing business”. It shows that he imagines that just because Palin is a woman he’ll capture the childishly miffed supporters of Hillary Clinton. What scares me most, though, is a President Palin, not unthinkable given McCain’s age, the amount of stress his body and mind have absorbed, and the stresses of fulfilling his duties as President. (Pay attention: He can’t remember from one day to the next what he has lied about, his thoughts and speech often wander, and he has sometimes repeated phrases, zombielike, as if his brain has shut down.) My mind’s eye fills with the bison massacres of old, women dying from back-alley abortions, abandonment of the “poor” (which now reaches into the middle class), and the further dumbing down of K-12 by elevating religious faith to the status of science.
In response to Mr. Price: The idea that forcing women to bear unwanted children, the only “human value” conservatives recognize, is somehow superior to allowing them to claim their rights as people already fully alive, is just tired, and tiresome, blathersnot. This narrow thinking ignores overpopulation, increasing scarcity of resources, our capacity to provide quality day care, health care, and education to all children, and the societal toll taken by court and prison costs, child abuse, poverty, and the ecological footprint of the average American. By bringing such children into the world, you insist on impoverishing and denying good life chances to more and more people. Those are not “human values”. Moreover, most “pro-lifers” see nothing wrong in killing 100,000 innocent Iraqis, or starving children in poor countries while we burn food to burn in our outrageously extravagant private automobiles, or denying decent housing and health care to the very children they insist be born. Open your mind and close your mouth.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Gov. Palin is pro-life but anti nature which as a biologist I find puzzling, but in the course of human events one credo rules: follow the money. Left to their own devices people in power will take the money, and the future be damned. Palin even prays for it at revivals. Once higher powers tell leaders what to wish for, there’s trouble afoot. In this case a national problem. As Sherman in the cartoon once said, Mrs. Whippee, fire up the way back machine.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
There is no way to make sense of American politics except in Lakoff’s metaphorical terms. How else can you explain the fact that the preservation of life on earth has become a partisan issue? I’m 51, and I become sadder with each passing Presidential election. Just when I think the disconnect between what rational observers say about the state of our environment and the substance of our national political discourse could not be greater, the clamor to extend our collective “bridge to nowhere” (over the River Denial) seems to strengthen. “Drill, baby, drill.” The fact that Obama and McCain are even in the polls, after all this, saddens me no end. Our great American experiment is about to run off that bridge. I’d like to say that’s a good thing, but I know there will be a lot of collateral damage before it comes to its final resting place.
September 15th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
A view from across the pond, purely as an Observer, who is not entitled to vote, but who has been following the Presidential election for the pas year.
Politics have been reduced to a very low level. An admirer of President Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton, where the Democratic NC have behaved with contempt towards Senator Clinton
and likewise to the voters, with so much dishonesty / underhand methods
with voting at the convention a mere charade instead of an open process and finally to produce an
inexperienced candidate who has
turned out to be a proven liar,
and unworthy of the noble office of
President.
I feel that Senator McCain and Governor Palin bring a freshness and at least an open and
honest approach to Politics, which has been eroded from within the Democratic party
From reading the above submissions, perhaps the good people of Colorado will not see
the present differences within the
two parties.
Good fortune, Shane, Ireland.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
[...] Obama’s stance on environmental issues. Check it out. Dissect it. Compare it with that of the bear-hating Republican from Alaska (seriously, how will she explain to her kids that she personally fought against the mamas and [...]
March 12th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I dont usually comment, but after reading through so much info I had to say thanks