McCain: Town Hall 05/05/08

John McCain
Town Hall
Charlotte, NC 05/05/08

TRANSCRIPT:
QUESTIONER: . . . in terms of biofuels we have certainly seen the long and far reaching global effects of increasing demand for food crops in order to fuel our vehicles. So I actually have a two part question. My first question I, I would like to know what your priorities are in, not just biofuels, but other alternative forms of energy. And also, what would you propose to do to cap oil companies that are currently receiving windfall profits from their sales?

JOHN MCCAIN: Well, first of all, on the biofuels, I'm all for every kind of alternate kind of energy. Wind, solar, uh, tide, every kind of alternate fuel. But I'm not for distorting the market. And when we subsidize ethanol, and we put tariffs on imported ethanol. We distort the market. And so, what happens? People grow corn and they grow it for alternate fuels and it is one of the reasons, not the only reason, but one of the reasons why we've seen a dramatic inflation in food prices. Because whenever you distort the market through government intervention in such a fashion, you see the results that we have. I'm for wind, solar, tide, all that. I'm all for nuclear. And I believe that we're not going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become energy independent, which we will do, of foreign oil, unless we use nuclear power and use it in great abundance. And it is not a problem of technology, it's a problem of what you do with the spent nuclear fuel. Whether you reprocess it or whether you store it someplace. And the technology is there, but the NIMBY problem is there. And the resistance of extremist environmental groups against nuclear power. The United States Navy has sailed ships around the world for more than 60 years with nuclear power plants on them and we've never had a problem/ So I think we need to store it and reprocess it. The French do, the Europeans do, there's no reason why we can't as well. I don't like obscene profits being made anywhere. And I'd be glad to look, not just at the windfall profits tax, that's not what bothers me. But we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people or industries or coroporations that are distorting the market. And again, it's a--, I bring it up again. We now have a farm bill that's winding its way through the Senate and House of Representatives that protects sugar. Why should we do that when we have seen an increasing cost of food and particularly those, including those that have sugar in it. Why shouldn't we, why should we raise protectionist barriers to sugar into this country? Why should we pay farmers, who make as much as $900,000 a year, additional tax dollars of yours and mine. If I were the president, I would veto that farm bill in a New. York. Minute.

LABEL:
JM NC 5-5 (EW#6) GEDH -- Clip I

To download a high res version of this clip, VISIT: https://issuealliance.box.net/shared/345c5v7k0c

To download the full campaign event, VISIT: https://issuealliance.box.net/shared/z2gb2c14og

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• TRACKING
• john
• mccain
• ethanol
• energy
• food
• crisis
• farm
• bill
• earmarks
• pork
• barrel
• alternative
• fuel
• gasoline
• gas
• oil
• nuclea