Subject: [big campaign] Tracking Update: McCain Speech On Climate Change in Portland, OR
From: "Cammie Croft" <[email-masked]>
To: "big campaign" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 16:52:29 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Just off the phone with our tracker Jessica who made it into today's event.
Here are the notes from our call:

*Background Details:
*- Press Outlets included: Local News - Channels 2, 6, 8, 9 and 12,
Oregonian; Major national networks - CNN, FOX, MSNBC; Usual
traveling/embedded press; Glen Johnson from the AP; Johnathan Martin from
the Politico
- Event held at Vestas Wind Energy Training Facility in Portland, OR
- Approximately 100 in audience; though a bunch of those were campaign
staffers and press; most of audience men, middle-aged, mix of blue and white
collar workers of the company
- Current Governor of Oregon spoke, the president of the company spoke and
then introduced McCain
- Event was closed to the general public
- Secret Service at event
- McCain used a gigantic teleprompter (we got footage of it)
- Staffers were wearing badges to identify themselves
- McCain did not answer questions after the event -- and did not hold a
media availability*

Speech - Transcript
*Link:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/Speeches/0b381abd-e573-459d-8716-fbd83ab62d8d.htm

* Remarks By John McCain on Climate Change Policy *
* *
May 12, 2008

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain delivered the following remarks as
prepared for delivery at the Vestas Training Facility, in Portland, OR:

Thank you all very much. I appreciate the hospitality of Vestas Wind
Technology. Today is a kind of test run for the company. They've got wind
technicians here, wind studies, and all these wind turbines, but there's no
wind. So now I know why they asked me to come give a speech.

Every day, when there are no reporters and cameras around to draw attention
to it, this company and others like it are doing important work. And what we
see here is just a glimpse of much bigger things to come. Wind power is one
of many alternative energy sources that are changing our economy for the
better. And one day they will change our economy forever.

Wind is a clean and predictable source of energy, and about as renewable as
anything on earth. Along with solar power, fuel-cell technology, cleaner
burning fuels and other new energy sources, wind power will bring America
closer to energy independence. Our economy depends upon clean and affordable
alternatives to fossil fuels, and so, in many ways, does our security. A
large share of the world's oil reserves is controlled by foreign powers that
do not have our interests at heart. And as our reliance on oil passes away,
their power will vanish with it.

In the coming weeks, I intend to address many of the great challenges that
America's energy policies must meet. When we debate energy bills in
Washington, it should be more than a competition among industries for
special favors, subsidies, and tax breaks. In the Congress, we need to send
the special interests on their way -- without their favors and subsidies. We
need to draw on the best ideas of both parties, and on all the resources a
free market can provide. We need to keep our eyes on big goals in energy
policy, the serious dangers, and the common interests of the American
people.

Today I'd like to focus on just one of those challenges, and among
environmental dangers it is surely the most serious of all. Whether we call
it "climate change" or "global warming," in the end we're all left with the
same set of facts. The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention,
especially in Washington. Good stewardship, prudence, and simple commonsense
demand that we to act meet the challenge, and act quickly.

Some of the most compelling evidence of global warming comes to us from
NASA. No longer do we need to rely on guesswork and computer modeling,
because satellite images reveal a dramatic disappearance of glaciers,
Antarctic ice shelves and polar ice sheets. And I've seen some of this
evidence up close. A few years ago I traveled to the area of Svalbard,
Norway, a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean. I was shown the southernmost
point where a glacier had reached twenty years earlier. From there, we had
to venture northward up the fjord to see where that same glacier ends today
-- because all the rest has melted. On a trip to Alaska, I heard about a
national park visitor's center that was built to offer a picture-perfect
view of a large glacier. Problem is, the glacier is gone. A work of nature
that took ages to form had melted away in a matter of decades.

Our scientists have also seen and measured reduced snowpack, with earlier
runoffs in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. We have seen sustained
drought in the Southwest, and across the world average temperatures that
seem to reach new records every few years. We have seen a higher incidence
of extreme weather events. In the frozen wilds of Alaska, the Arctic,
Antarctic, and elsewhere, wildlife biologists have noted sudden changes in
animal migration patterns, a loss of their habitat, a rise in sea levels.
And you would think that if the polar bears, walruses, and sea birds have
the good sense to respond to new conditions and new dangers, then humanity
can respond as well.

We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not
one of them. Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming,
or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central
facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles
that global warming will bring. We stand warned by serious and credible
scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great.
The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the
challenge.

There are vital measures we can take in the short term, even as we focus on
long-term policies to mitigate the effects of global warming. In the years
ahead, we are likely to see reduced water supplies, more forest fires than
in previous decades, changes in crop production, more heat waves afflicting
our cities and a greater intensity in storms. Each one of these consequences
of climate change will require policies to protect our citizens, especially
those most vulnerable to violent weather. Each one will require new
precautions in the repair and construction of our roads, bridges, railways,
seawalls and other infrastructure. Some state and local governments have
already begun their planning and preparation for extreme events and other
impacts of climate change. The federal government can help them in many
ways, above all by coordinating their efforts, and I am committed to
providing that support.

To lead in this effort, however, our government must strike at the source of
the problem -- with reforms that only Congress can enact and the president
can sign. We know that greenhouse gasses are heavily implicated as a cause
of climate change. And we know that among all greenhouse gasses, the worst
by far is the carbon-dioxide that results from fossil-fuel combustion. Yet
for all the good work of entrepreneurs and inventors in finding cleaner and
better technologies, the fundamental incentives of the market are still on
the side of carbon-based energy. This has to change before we can make the
decisive shift away from fossil fuels.

For the market to do more, government must do more by opening new paths of
invention and ingenuity. And we must do this in a way that gives American
businesses new incentives and new rewards to seek, instead of just giving
them new taxes to pay and new orders to follow. The most direct way to
achieve this is through a system that sets clear limits on all greenhouse
gases, while also allowing the sale of rights to excess emissions. And this
is the proposal I will submit to the Congress if I am elected president -- a
cap-and-trade system to change the dynamic of our energy economy.

As a program under the Clean Air Act, the cap-and-trade system achieved
enormous success in ridding the air of acid rain. And the same approach that
brought a decline in sulfur dioxide emissions can have an equally dramatic
and permanent effect on carbon emissions. Instantly, automakers, coal
companies, power plants, and every other enterprise in America would have an
incentive to reduce carbon emissions, because when they go under those
limits they can sell the balance of permitted emissions for cash. As never
before, the market would reward any person or company that seeks to invent,
improve, or acquire alternatives to carbon-based energy. It is very hard to
picture venture capitalists, corporate planners, small businesses and
environmentalists all working to the same good purpose. But such cooperation
is actually possible in the case of climate change, and this reform will set
it in motion.

The people of this country have a genius for adapting, solving problems, and
inventing new and better ways to accomplish our goals. But the federal
government can't just summon those talents by command -- only the free
market can draw them out. A cap-and-trade policy will send a signal that
will be heard and welcomed all across the American economy. Those who want
clean coal technology, more wind and solar, nuclear power, biomass and
bio-fuels will have their opportunity through a new market that rewards
those and other innovations in clean energy. The market will evolve, too, by
requiring sensible reductions in greenhouse gases, but also by allowing full
flexibility in how industry meets that requirement. Entrepreneurs and firms
will know which energy investments they should make. And the highest rewards
will go to those who make the smartest, safest, most responsible choices. A
cap-and-trade reform wi ll also create a profitable opportunity for rural
America to receive market-based payments -- instead of government subsidies
-- for the conservation practices that store carbon in the soils of our
nation's farms.

We will cap emissions according to specific goals, measuring progress by
reference to past carbon emissions. By the year 2012, we will seek a return
to 2005 levels of emission, by 2020, a return to 1990 levels, and so on
until we have achieved at least a reduction of sixty percent below 1990
levels by the year 2050. In the course of time, it may be that new ideas and
technologies will come along that we can hardly imagine today, allowing all
industries to change with a speed that will surprise us. More likely,
however, there will be some companies that need extra emissions rights, and
they will be able to buy them. The system to meet these targets and
timetables will give these companies extra time to adapt -- and that is good
economic policy. It is also a matter of simple fairness, because the
cap-and-trade system will create jobs, improve livelihoods, and strengthen
futures across our country.

The goal in all of this is to assure an energy supply that is safe, secure,
diverse, and domestic. And in pursuit of these objectives, we cannot afford
to take economic growth and job creation for granted. A strong and growing
economy is essential to all of our goals, and especially the goal of finding
alternatives to carbon-based technology. We want to turn the American
economy toward cleaner and safer energy sources. And you can't achieve that
by imposing costs that the American economy cannot sustain.

As part of my cap-and-trade incentives, I will also propose to include the
purchase of offsets from those outside the scope of the trading system. This
will broaden the array of rewards for reduced emissions, while also lowering
the costs of compliance with our new emissions standards. Through the sale
of offsets -- and with strict standards to assure that reductions are real
-- our agricultural sector alone can provide as much as forty percent of the
overall reductions we will require in greenhouse gas emissions. And in the
short term, farmers and ranchers can do it in some of the most
cost-effective ways.

Over time, an increasing fraction of permits for emissions could be supplied
by auction, yielding federal revenues that can be put to good use. Under my
plan, we will apply these and other federal funds to help build the
infrastructure of a post-carbon economy. We will support projects to advance
technologies that capture and store carbon emissions. We will assist in
transmitting wind- and solar-generated power from states that have them to
states that need them. We will add to current federal efforts to develop
promising technologies, such as plug-ins, hybrids, flex-fuel vehicles, and
hydrogen-powered cars and trucks. We will also establish clear standards in
government-funded research, to make sure that funding is effective and
focused on the right goals.

And to create greater demand for the best technologies and practices in
energy conservation, we will use the purchasing power of the United States
government. Our government can hardly expect citizens and private businesses
to adopt or invest in low-carbon technologies when it doesn't always hold
itself to the same standard. We need to set a better example in Washington,
by consistently applying the best environmental standards to every purchase
our government makes.

As we move toward all of these goals, and over time put the age of fossil
fuels behind us, we must consider every alternative source of power, and
that includes nuclear power. When our cap-and-trade policy is in place,
there will be a sudden and sustained pursuit in the market for new
investment opportunities in low-emission fuel sources. And here we have a
known, proven energy source that requires exactly zero emissions. We have
104 nuclear reactors in our country, generating about twenty percent of our
electricity. These reactors alone spare the atmosphere from about 700
million metric tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released every
year. That's the annual equivalent of nearly all emissions from all the cars
we drive in America. Europe, for its part, has 197 reactors in operation,
and nations including France and Belgium derive more than half their
electricity from nuclear power. Those good practices contribute to the more
than two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide avoided every year,
worldwide, because of nuclear energy. It doesn't take a leap in logic to
conclude that if we want to arrest global warming, then nuclear energy is a
powerful ally in that cause.

In a cap-and-trade energy economy, the cost of building new reactors will be
less prohibitive. The incentives to invest in a mature, zero-emissions
technology will be stronger. New research and innovation will help the
industry to overcome the well known drawbacks to nuclear power, such as the
transport and storage of waste. And our government can help in these
efforts. We can support research to extend the use of existing plants. Above
all, we must make certain that every plant in America is safe from the
designs of terrorists. And when all of this is assured, it will be time
again to expand our use of one of the cleanest, safest, and most reliable
sources of energy on earth.

For all of the last century, the profit motive basically led in one
direction -- toward machines, methods, and industries that used oil and gas.
Enormous good came from that industrial growth, and we are all the
beneficiaries of the national prosperity it built. But there were costs we
weren't counting, and often hardly noticed. And these terrible costs have
added up now, in the atmosphere, in the oceans, and all across the natural
world. They are no longer tenable, sustainable, or defensible. And what
better way to correct past errors than to turn the creative energies of the
free market in the other direction? Under the cap-and-trade system, this can
happen. In all its power, the profit motive will suddenly begin to shift and
point the other way toward cleaner fuels, wiser ways, and a healthier
planet.

As a nation, we make our own environmental plans and our own resolutions.
But working with other nations to arrest climate change can be an even
tougher proposition.  One of the greatest difficulties is to gain the
cooperation of China.  That nation today is dealing with a catastrophic
earthquake and the loss of thousands of citizens, including many children
and students.  The United States government has offered to help in any way
possible, and all of us hope that rescuers will be able to save more lives
at a terrible time for the people of the Sichuan Province.

In addressing the problem of climate change, cooperation from the government
of China will be essential.  China, India, and other developing economic
powers in particular are among the greatest contributors to global warming
today – increasing carbon emissions at a furious pace – and they are not
receptive to international standards.  Nor do they think that we in the
industrialized world are in any position to preach the good news of
carbon-emission control. We made most of our contributions to global warming
before anyone knew about global warming.

This set of facts and perceived self-interests proved the undoing of the
Kyoto Protocols. As president, I will have to deal with the same set of
facts. I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States
bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on
serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy
that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a
different approach -- an approach that speaks to the interests and
obligations of every nation.

Shared dangers mean shared duties, and global problems require global
cooperation. The United States and our friends in Europe cannot alone deal
with the threat of global warming. No nation should be exempted from its
obligations. And least of all should we make exceptions for the very
countries that are accelerating carbon emissions while the rest of us seek
to reduce emissions. If we are going to establish meaningful environmental
protocols, then they must include the two nations that have the potential to
pollute the air faster, and in greater annual volume, than any nation ever
in history.

At the same time, we will continue in good faith to negotiate with China and
other nations to enact the standards and controls that are in the interest
of every nation -- whatever their stage of economic development. And America
can take the lead in offering these developing nations the low-carbon
technologies that we will make and they will need. One good idea or
invention to reduce carbon emissions is worth a thousand finely crafted
proposals at a conference table. And the governments of these developing
economic powers will soon recognize, as America is beginning to do, their
urgent need for cleaner-burning fuels and safer sources of energy.

If the efforts to negotiate an international solution that includes China
and India do not succeed, we still have an obligation to act.

In my approach to global climate-control efforts, we will apply the
principle of equal treatment. We will apply the same environmental standards
to industries in China, India, and elsewhere that we apply to our own
industries. And if industrializing countries seek an economic advantage by
evading those standards, I would work with the European Union and other
like-minded governments that plan to address the global warming problem to
develop effective diplomacy, effect a transfer of technology, or other means
to engage those countries that decline to enact a similar cap.

For all of its historical disregard of environmental standards, it cannot
have escaped the attention of the Chinese regime that China's skies are
dangerously polluted, its beautiful rivers are dying, its grasslands
vanishing, its coastlines receding, and its own glaciers melting. We know
many of these signs from our own experience -- from environmental lessons
learned the hard way. And today, all the world knows that they are the signs
of even greater trouble to come. Pressing on blindly with uncontrolled
carbon emissions is in no one's interest, especially China's. And the rest
of the world stands ready to help.

Like other environmental challenges -- only more so -- global warming
presents a test of foresight, of political courage, and of the unselfish
concern that one generation owes to the next. We need to think straight
about the dangers ahead, and to meet the problem with all the resources of
human ingenuity at our disposal. We Americans like to say that there is no
problem we can't solve, however complicated, and no obstacle we cannot
overcome if we meet it together. I believe this about our country. I know
this about our country. And now it is time for us to show those qualities
once again.

Thank you.

-- 
Cammie L. Croft
Tracking/Media Monitoring Director
Progressive Media USA
[email-masked]
202-609-7679 (office)
206-999-3064 (cell)

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