Green Times

While 3,300 children noisily toured the hands-on exhibits at this city’s Liberty Science Center, Arizona Sen. John McCain touted his environmental record in a morning campaign stop.The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said he was dedicated to the issue of global climate change, adding an international agreement involving China and India was his “highest priority” if elected.

“I think that no doubt that globally the environment and this country’s environment is challenged,” McCain said.

He said he was proud of his environmental record, which he said included the protection of national parks.

McCain took the stage with former state Gov. Thomas Kean Sr. and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., whom he thanked for their environmental leadership after both praised McCain’s environmental credentials.

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Kean called McCain a “Teddy Roosevelt Republican” because of his interest in preservation and global warming. Lieberman said McCain was initially a global warming skeptic but is open-minded.

“He listens, he learns and when he finds something he thinks is really a problem, he’ll work to solve it,” Lieberman said.

The stop was originally planned for the beaches of Sandy Hook, but bad weather moved it indoors. After a 17-minute press conference, McCain toured part of the facility.

Also attending were state Sens. Bill Baroni, Kevin O’Toole and Tom Kean Jr. and Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose.

Baroni, McCain’s state campaign chairman, said McCain is the kind of Republican who wins in New Jersey in part because of an environmental record including action on climate change and open space issues.

“We think John McCain recognizes and his campaign matches the interests of the voters of New Jersey,” said Baroni, R-Middlesex, Mercer.

Environmental groups criticized McCain’s environmental record.

Environment New Jersey in a statement attacked McCain for supporting offshore oil drilling when the majority of the state’s congressional delegation opposed the move. The group said more should be invested in alternative energy.

It also quoted the League of Conservation Voters, which said McCain was the only congressional representative who missed every critical environmental vote. That league gave him a lifetime rating of 24 out of 100, and a zero so far this term.

The state chapter of the Sierra Club acknowledged that McCain was among the first to propose national, comprehensive global warming legislation but said in a statement, “His proposals promote coal, fossil fuels and unsafe nuclear power, as well as ethanol, which is not only bad for the environment but is causing a dramatic increase in the price of food worldwide.”

U.S. Senate candidate Murray Sabrin, who is seeking to unseat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., also latched onto the event for a campaign stop.

Talking with reporters before the 11 a.m. event, the Republican candidate used McCain’s expected environmental talk to question McCain’s support for the Iraq War, while calling for greater oil exploration, including oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He said companies that pollute should be held accountable and quoted statistics that suggested higher energy costs are causing seven to eight percent inflation, but he also said the higher energy costs are making alternative energy development profitable and that he was confident in people finding a solution.

It was McCain’s second visit to the state since February. The center visit was combined with a Thursday fundraiser in a Lakewood, Ocean County, where Baroni said McCain raised somewhat more than $1 million.

McCain was last came to the state for a campaign rally at a Mercer County firehouse the day before voters went to the polls in the Feb. 5 presidential primary and selected him. Lieberman also was at that rally with McCain.
Source: Press of Atlantic City, USA