It really is sickening how all MSM reportage acts as if there's a legitimate question as to whether or not offshore drilling will have any significant effect on imports or gasoline price at all, let alone anytime soon (thereby playing right along with republican demagoguery), or sets up this irresponsible and asinine false equivalence between the Dems wanting to force pay-as-you-go, and the Reps holding renewable credits hostage to extort the abandonment of this reform.

As for McCain himself, here again we've been seeing what Krugman calls the "Mccain rules", whereby the msm gives him a pass on every lie, every flip-flop, every stupidity, simply because their dogmatic mindset is that he's the "straight-talker", the "maverick", the man of integrity, and never mind that his campaign has provided zero evidence for any of this, quite the contrary.

Friedman's column today is spot on (Bob Herbert's column yesterday was also good), but as David points out, it's still "just" an op-ed, and therefore not a counter-example vs. the msm's general dereliction.

Barack Obama did not vote on July 30 either -- which is equally inexcusable in my book -- but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the solar and wind credits.

I am an Obama supporter, but it will take more than 37.5% effort to fix everything past leaders have messed up.  

come back to vote on July 30th, dropping whatever he was doing, and given a little press conference on the Capitol steps to slam McCain for not being there and showing how much Obama was in support of renewables, then he could have carried that throughout the campaign.  sigh.

I hesitate to use such a broad assertion that all Republicans hate renewable energy.  Here in Texas, the Governor and Land Office Commissioner are big fans of wind power. Interesting dynamic, how the enviros sued the state based on the Migratory Bird Act.

On Capitol Hill, the fight isn't about private business (with government permits) but all about HUGE subsidies and pay-outs to the renewable energy sector. If wind power and other renewables are so good, why do they need tons of money? Keeping the kW-hr subsidy as it is seems to work, and little more is needed - other than perhaps a plan to coordinate permit approvals by federal, state, and local governments. Am I missing something?

You'll fall into a big trap is you say that tons of R&D are needed, which is a classic Republican solution (that they don't want to fund, by the way). What we have today in terms of wind, wave, thermal, and solar energy works just fine. So tell me, is "more technology" the solution?

My opinion is that the government should support regional programs that are developed locally, and only fund them for seed money so as to attract businesses to implement renewables.

Disclaimer:  I'm an independent.

Onward through the fog

If wind power and other renewables are so good, why do they need tons of money? Keeping the kW-hr subsidy as it is seems to work, and little more is needed - other than perhaps a plan to coordinate permit approvals by federal, state, and local governments. Am I missing something?

This logic is certainly correct where it comes to fossil fuels, nukes, and automobiles, given how obscenely privileged and laden with public gifts they've been for so many decades.

But it's precisely this long dismal process of wealth and power accumulation, infrastructure calcification, and general entrenchment on the part of these winners the government picked for so long which renders it absurd to think renewables are on anything close to a level playing field.

As a practical matter,they need direct public assistance (not for R&D; you're correct that the technology is ready for deployment now - but the prices for home solar panels, for example, are still out of sight for lots of people without incentives and subsidies), while from the opposite direction we need to eradicate all the atavistic subsidies the entrenched fossil fuel and nuclear industries still get, and impose the carbon price they should've been paying all along.
(And also convert the utility pricing structure from profit based on gross delivery to profit based on efficiency - negawatts.)    

Sam, I am well aware of Texas' proactive attitudes toward renewable energy.  Strangely, or perhaps not strangely, people in Texas who are energy savvy due to its oil history are also some of the biggest champions of renewable energy.  I think Texans are better aware of dry holes and other limitations of the earth's resources than the average Republican.  The most obvious example, as a result of his own ad spending, is T. Boone Pickens (pardon if you consider him an Oklahoman).  Somehow, a post of mine with the title "T. Boone Pickens endorses Barack Obama, implicitly" was featured on Pickens' personal Web site.  In reply, I suggested to Pickens - who has said publicly that he must vote "Republican" due to party loyalty - that he consider voting for Rick Perry.

In any case, you have a realistic choice between Barack Obama and John McCain.  I have been accused of "appealing to authority" in other blogs, but I need to maintain that or compromise my anonymity.  Unfortunately for me, anyone reading this will have to research his or her own facts and apply deductive thinking to recognize that clean renewable energy is categorically a non-priority for John McCain and the Republican Party and will be so for the foreseeable future.