Here's the Obama response to McCain's speech:

"John McCain's support of the moratorium on offshore drilling during his first presidential campaign was certainly laudable, but his decision to completely change his position and tell a group of Houston oil executives exactly what they wanted to hear today was the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades. Much like his gas tax gimmick that would leave consumers with pennies in savings, opening our coastlines to offshore drilling would take at least a decade to produce any oil at all, and the effect on gasoline prices would be negligible at best since America only has 3% of the world's oil. It's another example of short-term political posturing from Washington, not the long-term leadership we need to solve our dependence on oil. Instead of giving oil executives another way to boost their record profits, I believe we should put in place a windfall profits tax that will help to ease the burden of higher energy costs on working families, and we should invest in the affordable, renewable sources of energy that Senator McCain has opposed in the past," said Barack Obama.

We have proven oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States...

That's less than 33 months' worth of U.S. consumption. And how much of that is already being tapped, anyway?

We have no untapped reserves that will make more than a short-term difference in our energy situation. We're simply going to have to use less petroleum because less of it will be available over time. And we're also going to have to use less coal if we want to reduce our CO2 pollution.

To replace coal, we can switch over to some mixture of wind, solar, nuclear, whatever - but designing our society to use less energy is the quickest and best first step.

To replace petroleum, the only solution is to use less - by replacing existing vehicles with more efficient ones, and by designing our cities so we don't need to use cars nearly as much.

I think this is the perfect McCain stance on this issue for Dems/Obama to exploit. McCain has been selling himself as a maverick, a pro-conservationist republican. But this stance is the same as Bush :

- more oil is the answer
- we'll worry about solving the problem later
- who cares about America's natural environment
- who cares about global warming
- lip service, lip service

Fits nicely in the box titled "Bush's Third Term".

McCain: "I'm for whatever side of the issue you're for."

http://lcv-ftp.org/LCV/mco.pdf

League Of Conservation Voters

Chart McCain and Obama's actual records on the environment.

As usual, McCain is lying again, when he claims that he is strong on protecting the environment, and putting a brake on global warming.

JOHN McCAIN HAS A GEORGE W. BUSH MINDSET.