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McCain getting on the ethanol wagon?


http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/IOWACAUCUS/711060034/1011/IOWACAUCUS

By James Q. Lynch

The Gazette
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CEDAR RAPIDS - Who knew John McCain was bullish on ethanol?

The 2008 Republican presidential hopeful, who skipped the 2000 Iowa caucuses in part because he knew his opposition to ethanol subsidies wouldn't cut it in corn country, now sees it as fundamental to America's energy supply and national security.

He has been displaying pictures of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russian President Vladimir Putin at town hall meetings across Iowa this week "to try to illustrate how fragile this whole issue of the world's oil supply is, how dependent we are on a supply from people who, at best, could be described as irrational," McCain told The Gazette Editorial Board on Tuesday.

"So it's a national security issue and I don't envision a scenario where ethanol doesn't play a very major role in the weaning of ourselves away from dependency on foreign oil," the Arizona senator said.

Unlike in 2000, McCain said, the price of oil is hovering around $100 a barrel and gasoline is approaching $3 a gallon.



"With the price of oil never coming down ¿ there's too many Chinese and Indian enterprises that are sucking up a finite source of energy to ever believe it's going to come down ¿ I don't see why ethanol isn't going to be a most attractive option," McCain said.

Earlier Tuesday, McCain attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new headquarters of Renewable Energy Group Inc., an Ames-based company that produces and distributes biodiesel.

There he pledged to make energy independence and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions his highest priority if he's elected president.

However, as much as he supports ethanol, he opposes federal subsidies for ethanol production "just as I oppose subsidies for Arizona cotton farmers."

The federal government's role should be limited to "pure research and development," McCain said. While the government should do what it can to encourage the development of alternative fuels, "I have great faith in the innovation and profit motive of the individual," he said.

"Subsidies assume that ethanol can't succeed without the government intervening," he said. "I don't accept that fundamental premise. I think (farmers are) the most innovative, efficient people in the world and they are perfectly capable of competing with any other alternative energy source."

Whether Iowa Republicans agree with him remains to be seen. McCain said he has "a lot of work to do it in Iowa" to be successful in the Jan. 3 precinct caucuses. A recent Strategic Vision poll found him in fifth place in Iowa with the support of 5 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. A recent national poll, however, showed McCain running second to Rudy Giuliani.

"It's all in the expectations game in Iowa," McCain said.

Speaking earlier Tuesday at Luther College in Decorah, McCain criticized the practice of waterboarding, which he described as "one of the most horrible things you can do to anybody," since it makes victims believe they are drowning.

Military leaders also oppose the practice because they don't want America's enemies to use the practice on U.S. troops, he said.

McCain said his chief rivals — former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — all have endorsed the practice under some conditions.

News correspondent Paul Scott contributed to this story.