John McCain: Maverick, POW, environmentalist, old man. Which of these is not like the other? It's actually unimportant, because the best thing about John McCain's environmental policy blitz through Oregon are the zingers that Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, keeps sending his way. Yesterday Carl had us rolling in the aisles with this gem:

"He's certainly better than Bush, and ... the average Republican senator," but "dramatically worse than the average Republican governor.

And today he makes fun of McCain for being old:

"The science on global warming has changed dramatically over the last five years and Senator McCain's previous bill and current proposals are outdated and fail to provide the big changes Americans are demanding."

But before you start thinking Ole Carl has been hitting the haterade pretty hard these days, let's take a look at some of McCain's more daring proposals. First, McCain's come out in favor of a cap-and-trade in the vein of the early EU ETS, i.e., McCain wants to give away carbon dioxide permits instead of requiring companies to buy them. This is tricky, because when you give something away for free, it typically isn't worth anything. Good thing we have "the purchasing power of the United States government," which right now is about the same as the purchasing power of Canada. McCain also came in in favor of nuclear power - at least he pronounces it like someone who wasn't dropped on their head as a child - arguing that "it doesn't take a leap in logic" to think nuclear power will make us as cool as Belgium. But, with nuclear power plant costs doubling or quadrupling in the past eight months to a record $12 billion, even the generous subsidies lopped onto nuclear plants won't be able to guarantee a price-competitive electricity rate. But enough about McCain, what does Carl Pope have to say?

"it's a bit hard to reconcile the profile McCain hopes to project with McCain's statement last week that the federal government ought to bribe states like California and Florida to open up their coastal waters to the oil industry by offering them richer royalty payments."

Zing!