Green crusades lot of talk

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have called for strict mandatory limits to control greenhouse gases but they aren’t leading by example — each has failed to pay for offsets to cover all of his campaign’s carbon emissions.

Campaign finance records for 2007 show that neither of the two leading presidential candidates has spent money to independently cover his campaign’s “carbon footprint” — the amount of carbon emissions emitted by the planes and vehicles the candidates and their staffs use for travel, or by the computers and headquarters needed to run a presidential campaign.

Though both campaigns say they practice energy conservation, Mr. Obama offsets only some of his airplane flight emissions, while Mr. McCain doesn’t cover even that.

“They clearly should be not only buying these ration coupons, or indulgences, but they should be massively reducing their footprint,” said Christopher Horner, author of the “Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming.” “The fact that they’re out front on [global warming] is where their troubles start.”

By contrast, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, has made monthly payments to offset her campaign’s “carbon footprint.”

The concept is simple: Businesses and individuals can pay a company to plant trees or fund projects that produce lower amounts of greenhouse gases. The goal is “carbon neutrality,” or paying for enough offsets to cover your own emissions, and it’s catching on from rock bands to Congress. Even parts of the Academy Awards went carbon-neutral last year.

But presidential campaigns are having a tougher time.

Six months ago, Mr. McCain’s campaign said it was preparing to reduce its net carbon output. Spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan told The Washington Times that McCain staffers had asked for a company to study the campaign’s carbon footprint and suggest offsets.

“They’re right in the middle of it, so we look forward to hearing the outcomes of this study,” she said in August.

Yesterday, though, spokesman Brian Rogers said that was a mistake, and the study fell by the wayside a month earlier during a July staff shake-up.

“We were in negotiations for study but in the chaos of last summer, the staff in charge of it left, and it was not picked back up,” Mr. Rogers said.

Even some campaigns that started with the best of intentions fell short in execution, stopping payments when their cash flow tightened.

John Edwards, one of the earliest candidates to commit to offsets, paid $21,997 last year to Native Energy, a Vermont-based company, according to Federal Election Commission reports. His most recent payment was made July 11, six months before his campaign ended.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, another candidate who made an offsets pledge, recorded his last payment to Carbon Fund in September, more than two months before he dropped out of the race.

“I’m sure that a number of the candidates saw offsets as a good way to show leadership by example, but when confronted with the cold reality of a cash crunch, offsets are one of the first things to go,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

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