Earth to McCain and Obama

JOHN MCCAIN and Barack Obama were not always oceans apart on the environment. McCain, in his more authentically maverick days, sided with the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Arizona senator has praised the conservationism of Theodore Roosevelt and has complained about brown clouds he woke up to in Phoenix. When McCain and Senator Joseph Lieberman tried in vain to win Senate greenhouse gas emissions caps, Fred Krupp, the president of Environmental Defense, said, "It's the first serious discussion at the federal level. The ballgame is changing."

The ballgame has changed again. The environment is getting shut out. A national poll this summer by the University of Maryland's WorldPublicOpinion.org found that nearly 9 in 10 of McCain and Obama supporters alike favor more solar and wind energy, and only a bare majority of McCain supporters (54 percent) want more nuclear power plants. But McCain's praises of Roosevelt have dissolved into chants of "Drill, baby, drill."

McCain continues to say he opposes ANWR drilling, but his position is belied by his selection of pro-drilling Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. After eight years of Bush officials deleting scientific findings from environmental reports, McCain picked a running mate who ignored her own state scientists and sued the Bush administration for extending protection status to polar bears. Palin also questions protections for beluga whales and salmon. That is quite the brown cloud.

That makes it too easy for Obama, the Democratic candidate, to play the environmentalist. To his credit, he has forcefully said America cannot drill its way into energy independence. He has proposed far more plans to diversify America's energy portfolio, along with millions of "green jobs." But a free pass can make for a sloppy White House if Obama wins.

Obama enjoys the endorsements of the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters, while McCain has raked in $3.5 million in contributions from energy companies in this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That more than doubles Obama's $1.7 million. But the Democratic Party leadership is hardly immune from influence-peddling by big business, especially where the environment is concerned. And pressure will only build in a down economy.

An Obama administration is not likely to reenact the secretive Cheney energy meetings and delete science reports. But normal lobbying could be quite enough to keep a new White House from demonstrating leadership for the planet.