McCain, in North Bend, talks energy, environment with local leaders

NORTH BEND -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain participated in a roundtable discussion on environmental issues today at the Cedar River Watershed Education Center in Eastern King County. McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona, was joined by a wide slate of interested parties, ranging from Public Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland to REI CEO Sally Jewel, former Gov. Dan Evans and Mercer Island City Councilman Steve Litzow along with a handful of local business and non-profit group leaders.

Local Republicans in attendance at the event included Attorney General Rob McKenna, who is McCain's state chair, former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, former Secretary of State Ralph Munro, state Sen. Cheryl Pflug and party Chairman Luke Esser. The first thing off their tongues was their excitement at having such a prominent national figure in town.

"It's exciting to have Sen. McCain out here," said Luke Esser. "I think it sends a signal that he's taking the state of Washington seriously and he's going to campaign here and in the state of Oregon, which is great news for Republicans and the voters of the state."

Pflug agreed, adding that McCain's visit also added to the importance of the electoral college system, one that state Democrats are hoping to transcend by giving Washington's electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

"The first thing is that it points out how important it is that Washington not move forward with the majority's idea this year," she predicted, "because you'll never see another Presidential candidate in Washington if that happens because where our votes go will be dependent on how California and New York vote."

At the roundtable, the participants discussed issues like federal subsidies, carbon cap-and-trade systems, nuclear power and sustainable communities. McCain tended to moderate, asking questions of those on stage with him about their experiences and how he could help as president.

Sen. John McCain leads a roundtable discussion

"I loved seeing them balancing, trying to figure out a balance of the ideas," Pflug commented. "Having someone from REI, Sally Jewell, talking about the brass tacks of good intentions and economic consequences, that is important because ‘sustainable' is not just an environmental word, it is also an economic and a budget word."

McCain told the gathered crowd that he had become a strong believer in global warming based on trips he had taken, on the taxpayers dime he admitted, to places like Antarctica, Greenland and the Great Barrier Reef where he had seen the drastic changes in the landscape.

"These are the miner's canaries," he warned.

On climate change, McCain supports a cap-and-trade system that allows for a market-based system to draw down carbon emissions rather than a government mandate.

"The Europeans have a camp and trade system," he reported. "We're not inventing the wheel here. We're trying to put free enterprise market based incentives."

McCain also addressed the climate change deniers. He suggested that even if skeptics are correct, moving toward more sustainable and renewable energy production measures is a good thing. Besides, he figured, with American ingenuity and innovation, creating new systems would only be a boon for the economy.

"I just firmly and steadfastly reject the notions that this is somehow going to be harmful to our economy," McCain said.

"Do I have some passion about it? Yes. Yes, I have some passion," McCain asked himself before adding that he knew America's youth agreed with him. Still, he acknowledged, "We got a few old geezers that we've got to convince."

"What I liked best was that there was a real commitment that Federal government solutions should not be top down, regulation specific sorts of things but provide incentives," Esser said of McCain's ideas. "Let the private sector work, let the free market work, and that is a real Republican philosophy for addressing any problem."

Luke Esser also liked McCain's somewhat agnostic approach to climate change mitigation. Even though the Arizona Senator is a firm believer in the adverse effect of global warming, he is willing to explain it to some as a Pascal's wager, that America has more to gain from seeking to change energy habits than they do to lose.

"I think he phrased it very well when there was the discussion of, ‘hey, if there's no 100% certainty, that the philosophy of taking action even if you think you may be wrong, I think that there is a good message there," Esser noted. "There are some smart people, some good people, who are still not convinced of global warming and climate change but I think phrasing the debate here as, ‘what should we do even if we're not 100% sure?' is a great way to capture that."

Former Gov. Evans agreed. He said during the discussion that in a recent climate change board he sat on, "We opted for an insurance policy. There are many things that can be done that make sense economically and that have a big role in reducing the things that carbon is doing. Frankly it doesn't matter if we are having climate change, for those few who still don't believe."

One of Doug Sutherland's main worries was that Washington would lose out relative to the rest of the country if a system of cap-and-trade were enacted because of the work the state has already done to mitigate carbon damage with legislative tools and the widespread use of hydropower. He and McCain discussed the idea of giving credit for past measures, and likened the entire system to preventing wildfires. With a dry forest, different interests have different opinions about how much should be cut to save the whole from potential fire. With a carbon trading system, the conundrum is the same.

Mercer Island Councilman Litzow concurred that even on city issues, a similar battle of priorities often stood in the way of meaningful environmental progress. When it comes to buying new hybrids for the city, he said, sometimes it loses out to emergency management structures and general city maintenance.

The one combative moment to arise in an otherwise cordial discussion of environmental and energy issues came when HomeStreet Bank Chairman Bruce Williams questioned John McCain's commitment to nuclear power as a safe and clean source of energy. Namely, he told the Senator that many Washingtonians were wary of creating more nuclear waste when this state already had its hands full with the volatile and expensive Hanford nuclear waste site.

"All I'm saying is if other countries are able to make use of nuclear power and address the issue of spent nuclear fuel, then I don't know why the United States can't," responded McCain, who then brought up America's nuclear Naval submarines that have had so few problems in their long existence.

However, Evans admitted that when it comes to fixing Hanford, "We don't really know how to do it right now."

Just as they were with the general idea of John McCain's visit to the state, Luke Esser and Cheryl Pflug were equally enthusiastic about the commitment to the environment McCain hoped to portray in his Northwest trip. Pflug, who touted her own connections to the local forests by learning to ski at the age of five in the protected forests that her grandfather, Chester Morse, helped create.

"Absolutely," Pflug answered when asked if she appreciated McCain's vocal stand on the environment. "I mean, there are a lot of us that have been promoting environmental awareness for quite some time and have sort of a bad stigma so, yeah, I'm thrilled to see that. It's very important. It's a lot of what Washington is about."

Esser spoke to the same theme, but added the thread of politics.

"I think those are issues that a lot of voters and, frankly, a lot of independent voters are concerned about in Western Washington so I think that is going to find a way to appeal to them which is good."