Over at TAPPED, Sam Boyd writes:

This McCain ad on global warming is hilarious. It says that one side denies the reality of global warming while the other supports “high taxes and crippling regulation.” McCain you see, takes the moderate aproach we need: Admitting there’s a problem without actually doing anything about it. Now that’s a maverick! See Kate’s recent piece for more on McCain’s lousy environmental record.

And indeed, the media seems ready to buy into the story of John McCain as reasonable moderate. Marvelous how the noisy, denialist right is so successful at shifting the center away from good policies.

But Sam is quite unfair to McCain in saying that he won’t actually do anything about warming. McCain has a plan, and a generous one at that. He wants to tax regular consumers and send the proceeds to energy companies. Honestly, that is his plan.

The McCain yen for nuclear subsidies is well documented. But this extends to his signature climate policy: cap-and-trade. He’ll cap emissions, and then hand the extremely valuable emission permits over to industry. And maybe, just maybe, somewhere down the road, we’ll try auctioning. But no promises.

What this means is that energy costs will go up for consumers, and those increased costs will go directly to the bottom line of energy companies. This is his preference, rather than a system in which permits are auctioned, generating revenue for the government which can then be used to help consumers cope with the challenges created by carbon pricing–Obama’s plan. Please repeat this as often as possible: McCain wants to tax you and give the proceeds to corporations. That’s his plan for climate change.