McCain Campaign Conference Call With Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Today (June 23, 2008), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and McCain 2008 senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin held a conference call on Barack Obama and energy policy:

Senator Lindsey Graham: "For those who believe that America is helpless and can't aggressively pursue fixing our energy problems by doing more than decreasing demand, I think they're wrong. Senator Obama said today there's really nothing we can do except lower demand. I think Sen. McCain and I and many other disagree with that. Lifting the federal moratorium on deep sea exploration off the Eastern coast is a good place to start. With $4 a gallon gas, now is the time for America to increase its supply. The China/India demand for worldwide oil is not going to go down. It's going to go up. There's domestic supply to be had here in an environmentally sensitive manner. So I think one place to begin is lifting the moratorium that would allow with state consent energy extraction off the Eastern Coast."
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"I think the bottom line here is [Barack Obama] never says anything -- he never tells the left anything they don't want to hear. The hard left that's dead set against nuclear power, so he'll give lip-service to nuclear power being on the table when it comes to climate change, but he shuts down the potential for nuclear power for not dealing with the waste. It's just a continuation of the same old song. There's always a reason to say no and that reason has roots in the groups that he's afraid to offend. I mean now's the time to push the country, the private sector and the government itself to do something about what I think is a national security issue and so there is a difference and the differences are real."

Doug Holtz-Eakin: "In contrast, Senator Obama has no plan, or maybe his plan is to say no. When asked to reduce gas taxes, no, additional exploration, no, eliminate the tariffs so low cost products could get into the U.S. system, no, even the playing field for other alternative energies, no. He's going to keep the ethanol subsidy. And today, batteries and using nuclear power more extensively to solve this problem, no. Batteries are a gimmick. He doesn't support nukes. Senator McCain doesn't believe you can say no to everything, because we cannot continue to tolerate the exposure to import oil and the high gas prices. Perhaps the reason Senator Obama has a plan that says just say no is he thinks prices are okay and he's said so. The battery prize today is part of John McCain's vision of moving the transportation sector quickly away from a reliance on oil because imported oil exposes this nation to too many dangers."

Background On Barack Obama's Comments June 23, 2008:

Barack Obama: "We're not gonna bring down gas prices easily, quickly. The only way to do it is to reduce demand over the long term in a serious way." (Barack Obama, Remarks, Albuquerque, NM, 6/23/08)

Listen To The Full Conference Call.