Republican presidential nominee John McCain, looking for ways to tackle the country's energy problems, is proposing a US$300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses current technology.
“In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure,” said McCain in remarks as prepared for delivery in a speech he was to give yesterday at Fresno State University in California.
“From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success,” he said.
With gasoline prices rising ever higher, the US economy in trouble and global warming becoming a more real fear, developing new sources of energy and moving away from the US’s dependence on foreign oil are shaping up to be major themes of the presidential campaign.
Both candidates have sparred in recent days over how to best tackle the country’s energy problems.
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promised on Sunday to end unregulated oil trading, claiming the so-called “Enron loophole” was partly to blame for the spike in US fuel costs, particularly record gasoline prices.
Energy trading giant Enron collapsed in a major corporate scandal in 2001 that sent executives to prison, but not before it won exemption a year earlier from federal oversight for energy commodity trading.
Critics claim that measure has allowed speculators to drive up the price of oil well beyond levels dictated by current supply and demand.
The Illinois senator has also called on for a penalty on windfall profits for oil sales at or above US$80 a barrel.
While McCain supports closing the loophole, he has rejected the windfall profits penalty Obama’s proposing, saying the same measure caused the failure of Jimmy Carter’s presidency by limiting oil exploration in the face of the Arab oil embargo four decades ago.
Earlier in the week, McCain called for an end to a ban on offshore oil drilling that has been in place for more than a quarter century.
The Arizona senator has said removing the ban would be a key part of his energy plan.
Obama dismissed the idea of lifting the ban, saying it wouldn’t result in any short-term results for cash-strapped Americans.
McCain’s so-called Clean Car Challenge to award US$300 million to create a new type of automobile battery technology would equate to US$1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency.”
McCain is also proposing stiffer fines for automakers who skirt existing fuel-efficiency standards, as well as incentives to increase use of domestic and foreign alcohol-based fuels such as ethanol.
In addition, McCain’s proposal would provide US automakers with a US$5,000 tax credit for every zero-carbon emissions car they develop and sell.
Without blaming his fellow Republicans in the Bush administration directly, McCain said: “It feels the same today, because the unwise policies of our government have left America’s energy future in the control of others.”
The Philippine Department of Justice yesterday labeled Vice President Sara Duterte the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the nation’s president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena. Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed. “The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Philippine Undersecretary of Justice Jesse Andres said at yesterday’s press briefing. “The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind
Ireland, the UK and France faced travel chaos on Saturday and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow and ice. Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day. Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic incident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident. Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power, and closed
Czech intelligence chief Michal Koudelka has spent decades uncovering Russian spy networks, sabotage attempts and disinformation campaigns against Europe. Speaking in an interview from a high-security compound on the outskirts of Prague, he is now warning allies that pushing Kyiv to accept significant concessions to end the war in Ukraine would only embolden the Kremlin. “Russia would spend perhaps the next 10 to 15 years recovering from its huge human and economic losses and preparing for the next target, which is central and eastern Europe,” said Koudelka, a major general who heads the country’s Security Information Service. “If Ukraine loses, or is forced
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
RSS