JOHN MCCAIN has a reputation as a maverick and a conservationist, but neither was in evidence last week when the Republican presidential candidate endorsed more oil drilling off the US coast. "With gasoline running at more than four bucks a gallon," he declared, the federal government should lift a longstanding moratorium on offshore oil exploration and production.
The value of the moratorium is evident off the coast of New England, in the storied fishing grounds of Georges Bank. The area has long been viewed as a potential source of oil and natural gas - but it lies at the heart of a vital fishing industry now. Its haddock and sea scallop stocks are recovering from years of overfishing. But the continuing fragility of that and other offshore ecosystems is an argument for protecting them more, not for drilling in them.
Maybe McCain doesn't mind lending his name to the oil industry's cynical efforts to scrap a wise policy, using sky-high gas prices as an excuse. Or maybe he really thinks more offshore drilling - which would take a decade to yield even modest amounts of oil - will bring prices down right now. Either way, McCain is disturbingly willing to sell out the marine environment to preserve an oil-guzzling status quo.
There's too little oil off the US coast to have much effect on the world market. As the earth's climate warms, the federal government should be promoting conservation and identifying alternatives to fossil fuels - not just because rising demand from China and India makes oil ever more expensive, but because the welfare of the planet depends on it.
McCain once knew this. In an interview at the Globe in December, he deplored the Bush administration's record on global warming, saying "history will judge them very harshly." Six months later, he wants to drill for more fossil fuel. The old McCain would judge this new McCain harshly, too.
