Environment for '08

You could call it an obvious choice—but presidential hopefuls call it an agenda. Or even better; a plan.

As the 2008 election rapidly descends upon us there is so much talk surrounding Medicare and Iraq but what about the environment.

Presidential candidates are now running on the “green ticket” reports NPR:
“Candidates who are out talking to the public all the time understand that this is an issue that the public wants to hear about," says Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters.

This is a far cry from last year’s mid term elections as supporting the environment was an issue that Democrats and Republicans were often in opposition on.

There is now a new website devoted to the candidates’ views on environmental issues: http://www.heatison.org/
Here are some statements taken from the candidates on the website. There are clearly two opposing sides but can there be one vision?
The Democrat
Hillary Clinton:
-changing our tax system to stop subsidizing oil
-“energy efficiency is an enormous underutilized energy resource”
- through legislation, there can be “strong targets, uses flexible, market-based mechanisms to get there, provides for investments in new energy technologies, and offsets impacts on low-income Americans."

The Republican
John McCain
-“The announcement today by a top U.S. business leader recognizes that our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming”
-goal to pass legislation that creates “innovative, meaningful, and economically feasible” measures
-and “facilitate international measures to solve the problem”

Staying true to their party’s platforms—Clinton and McCain’s verbiage outlines where the two parties differ.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10840816