Republican presidential candidate John McCain will call the United States' foreign-oil reliance and global warming twin threats the country must aggressively confront during a speech he is schedule to give Monday, the AP reports.
"National security depends on energy security," the Arizona senator says in a speech he is to give Monday in which he suggests the country can't achieve either if it remains dependent on oil-rich Middle Eastern nations linked to terrorists.
In the speech, McCain portrays global warming as "a serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security challenge," and U.S. energy policy as a matter of national security...
"Al-Qaida must revel in the irony that America is effectively helping to fund both sides of the war they caused. As we sacrifice blood and treasure, some of our gas dollars flow to the fanatics who build the bombs, hatch the plots, and carry out attacks on our soldiers and citizens," McCain says. "The transfer of American wealth to the Middle East helps sustain the conditions on which terrorists prey."
McCain also singles out Iran and Venezuela as examples of nations that because of their oil wealth have no incentives to change their troublesome ways and open their economies and governments.
"The politics of oil impede the global progress of our values, and restrains governments from acting on the most basic impulses of human decency," McCain says. He promises to propose an energy policy akin to "a declaration of independence from the fear bred by our reliance on oil sheiks and our vulnerability to the troubled politics of the lands they rule."
McCain's speech also includes his proposed climate-change legislation that would set caps on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and offer incentives for industries to come up with new energy sources, the AP says.
McCain is the sponsor, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Connecticut, of legislation called the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007. Among its co-sponsores, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama. The legislation would place serious restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions over the next half-century, while also providing subsidies for nuclear research.
Environmental activist groups like Greenpeace don't like that last part very much.
I predict McCain's emphasis on energy policy as a national security matter will play well with the Republican conservatives who have not, as of yet, embraced his candidacy, but his message on global warming will have the offsetting effect. Look for McCain to get some loving attention from the Big Media on this one, but not much of a bump in the polls.
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