Goode, 61, repeatedly told the crowd that he wants Congress to remove a federal ban on drilling for oil and natural gas in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and on the outer continental shelf.. Throughout the forum, Goode reiterated his call for domestic oil drilling, even when asked seemingly unrelated questions.Goode's call for drilling was a chunk of red meat thrown to his supporters, it roused them to vigorous cheering (dampened by the moderator, as per SSV style for the Forum). Tom Periello appeared to me to handle the issue reasonably well, but his main thrust is energy security via alternative fuels, such as biofuel production in VA-05.
Many progressives are dismayed that our Democratic politicians are accepting some level of drilling policy. This Forum displayed the political calculation involved: if Congress were to pass some type of drilling policy in the next month or so, it would take that chunk of red meat away from Republicans like Virgil Goode. As always, politics is a pragmatic business.
Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year - which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn't leave his office to vote.[...]
As Richard K. Lester, an energy-innovation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, notes, "The best chance we have - perhaps the only chance" of addressing the combined challenges of energy supply and demand, climate change and energy security "is to accelerate the introduction of new technologies for energy supply and use and deploy them on a very large scale."
This, he argues, will take more than a Manhattan Project. It will require a fundamental reshaping by government of the prices and regulations and research-and-development budgets that shape the energy market. Without taxing fossil fuels so they become more expensive and giving subsidies to renewable fuels so they become more competitive - and changing regulations so more people and companies have an interest in energy efficiency - we will not get innovation in clean power at the scale we need.
That is what this election should be focusing on. Everything else is just bogus rhetoric designed by cynical candidates who think Americans are so stupid - so bloody stupid - that if you just show them wind turbines in your Olympics ad they'll actually think you showed up and voted for such renewable power - when you didn't.