Sen. John McCain, the current Republican nominee for
president, had planned on an environmental event at Sandy Hook
today, but the event was cancelled due to rain.
“Given the Senator’s
support for oil drilling off coastal states like New Jersey, it’s only appropriate that today’s Sandy Hook event was cancelled because of rain. His
recent statements on our current energy crisis leave him all wet,” said
Doug O’Malley, field director at Environment New Jersey.
In a recent town hall meeting in Michigan,
Sen. McCain touted his support for off-shore oil drilling and urged for Congressional
incentives to jumpstart state off-shore drilling efforts.
The Arizona Senator’s support of off-shore drilling contrasts
sharply with the majority of New Jersey’s
Congressional delegation, which has repeatedly voted against attempts to drill off
the Eastern Outer Continental Shelf.
“Even President Bush,
a former Texas oilman, has warned that America is addicted to oil,” said O’Malley. And the first rule of crisis management is that when you’re in a hole,
you stop digging. Sen. McCain’s support for off-shore drilling is exactly the
wrong answer for New
Jersey.”
Presently, as Sen. McCain calls for federal incentives to
promote oil drilling, tax incentives for alternative energy sources like wind
and solar are languishing in the U.S. Senate. Such incentives are critical for these technologies
to expand, industry experts say.
The measure that would have offered tax incentives for
alternative technologies failed earlier this year by one vote in the U.S.
Senate – a vote that Sen. McCain missed, despite having flown to Washington
the day of the vote. In fact, the League of Conservation Voters reports that of
the nation’s 535 Congressional representatives, only Sen. McCain missed every
critical environmental vote.
Critics of off-shore drilling argue that America’s
environmental laws are designed to protect the entire nation, and should not
offer piecemeal protection on a state-to-state basis. While New
Jersey elected officials have been unified against
drilling, there have been efforts to drill off the coast of Virginia,
and some of the selected sites are only 90 miles from Cape May.
“The last thing we
need to be promoting to end our energy crisis is more drilling. Sen. McCain
doesn’t get it,” O’Malley continued. “Even
worse, Sen. McCain is promoting more incentives for oil drilling, while leaving
clean energy literally hanging in the wind.”
As the clean energy industry, especially the solar
community, argues before Congress for the multi-year extension of the solar
investment tax credit (ITC), Environment New
Jersey’s national office released a report yesterday, “On The Rise: Solar
Thermal Power.”
The report, using data from the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, makes the argument that with the appropriate leadership and
incentives at the national level, America
can become the world’s leader in concentrated solar production, by generating
80 gigawatts of power by 2030. This
would be enough energy to power 25 million homes, creating up to 140,000
permanent green collar jobs.
“Sen. McCain’s
position of promoting off-shore drilling is a backwards approach to solving our
energy crisis,” O’Malley said. “True
leadership on energy independence would be to promote clean energy solutions,
and stand up to Big Oil. We urge Sen. McCain to do right for New Jersey and stand up to the energy industry.”
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Environment New Jersey is a Trenton-based, non-profit citizen
advocacy group representing over 20,000 citizen members across the state.
