In LV, Edwards turns up heat on global warming

By Phoebe Sweet

Thursday, Aug. 23, 2007 | 7:24 a.m.

Sen. John Edwards picked a sizzling spot Wednesday to outline his plan to reverse global warming.

Sweating through a dress shirt under a Las Vegas sun - and its brutal reflection from solar panels designed to harness it - the Democratic candidate for president offered a plan long on themes but short on details for ways to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign sources of oil and to create a new, green - power economy.

Critics and supporters alike say the plan is short on specifics, but is more complete than any offered by his rivals. Nevada environmentalists have rallied behind Edwards because he advocates aggressive goals to cap pollution that causes global warming, support renewable energy and crack down on auto and power-industry emissions.

Experts say some of his goals aren't realistic, but that doesn't matter much to the state's environmentalists.

"The important thing about Edwards is that he gets it, that this is something that needs to be dealt with," said Charles Benjamin, director of the Nevada office of Western Energy Resources.

Edwards' plan calls for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions domestically at levels scientists have determined will help avoid the worst effects of global warming and raising $30 billion to $40 billion for renewable energy, fuel efficiency and conservation programs by auctioning off the right to emit global-warming-causing pollution.

He also proposes a global climate change treaty that, unlike the controversial Kyoto Protocol, would include developing nations in efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Edwards says the $30 billion to $40 billion New Energy Economy Fund would pay for everything from direct investment in renewable energy generation and research and development of cleaner fossil fuel technology to massive conservation efforts and development of more fuel efficient cars.

"It's aggressive, I agree with that," Edwards said Wednesday after a tour of a UNLV solar research site. "These are the minimal steps that need to be taken."

The plan is shy on details - such as whether renewable energy-rich states such as Nevada will bear the burden of helping the nation produce 25 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2025 - in part because of the very nature of election year politics.

"He can't talk about the details because people are already lost and when you start talking about the issues they get even more lost," said Frank Maisano, a utility industry attorney. "It's easier to say, 'Hurricane Katrina is caused by global warming, and we've got to do something,' than to say how you're going to pay for a conservation program or implement a cap and trade system."

Edwards says the president's greatest role is to guide the discussion, to use the bully pulpit.

And although climate change and energy independence are looming issues facing the United States and the next president, they aren't necessarily as high on voters' priority list as the long and often debated issues of health care or the Iraq war .

"Energy and the environment and climate change and global warming, even in this heightened atmosphere, remain low on the totem pole of issues that really move votes," Maisano said.

But that's where a successful presidential candidate could take a lead. "Most Americans understand global warming is real," Edwards said. "The thing that's missing at this moment ... is urgency. And that's where the president and presidential leadership (come in). Make people understand how urgent it is and lay our a doable, practical solution."