With ethanol plants dotting the western Iowa countryside, and many farmers and investors hitched to the success of the facilitties, GOP presidential candidate John McCain's comments this morning on "Meet The Press" are worth examining.

He directly says in the interview that he believes nuclear power is a better solution than ethanol. McCain also sought to explain away his earlier uneducated dismissal of ethanol by suggesting that his comments were tied strictly to the price of oil — and now that oil is at $60 ethanol makes sense, whereas it didn't before. This analysis is clever politiically but it fails to take into account how vital the support of senators like Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley has been to he development of the ethanol industry.

Below is the portion of the MTP transcript dealing with ethanol

MR. RUSSERT:  This is what you said about ethanol–not about subsidies, but about ethanol.

SEN. McCAIN:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  "Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality."

SEN. McCAIN:  Mm-hmm. 

MR. RUSSERT:  And after you said that, you acknowledged you might pay a political price for that view, and this is what you said.

(Videotape, June 19, 2005)

SEN. McCAIN:  My opposition to ethanol has–obviously would hurt me.  But you know what I found out?  That every time I've done something from what may have been influenced by political reasons, I've regretted it.  Every time that I've done something that I think is right, it's turned out OK in the end.  I've got to do what I think is right.  And if it offends a certain political constituency, I, I regret it, but there's really nothing I can do about it.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Now you go to Iowa and say this:  "I support ethanol.  I think it's a vital alternative energy source, not only because of our dependence on foreign oil but because of its greenhouse gas reduction effects." You had said it had nothing to do with reducing fuel consumption, nothing to do with improving air quality.

SEN. McCAIN:  I, I, I am of the confirmed belief that when oil is 10, $15 a barrel, that ethanol does not make sense.  When oil is $60-plus a barrel, then ethanol does make sense.  I still oppose the subsidies to it.  It makes a lot of sense.  We are dependent on foreign oil too much.  We have a situation where greenhouse gases has now become–emissions has become a vital issue.  I am for sugarcane, biofuels, switch grass, and corn-based ethanol because of our need for independence on foreign oil.  And it has become far more graphic and dramatic as we watch people like Mr. Chavez in Venezuela behave the way that he has, and President Putin behaving the way that he does.  It's a fact that when oil is low amounts per barrel and–that we are not concerned about greenhouse gases or dependence upon foreign oil, it doesn't make the sense that it makes today.  It does make sense today.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you do now disagree with what you said in '03, that it has nothing to do with reducing fuel consumption…

SEN. McCAIN:  What I was…

MR. RUSSERT:  …or nothing to improve air quality?

SEN. McCAIN:  I don't…

MR. RUSSERT:  You now believe…

SEN. McCAIN:  I don't know what–I don't know what it does to fuel consumption.  I'm sure that there is some question about that, as the…

MR. RUSSERT:  How about air quality?

SEN. McCAIN:  …as the, as the technology has increased dramatically.  The air quality, it does reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Most effectively? Does–as much as nuclear power?  No.  But given our dependence on foreign oil, given the situation as the price of oil then–and, and the realities of climate change, we should go for many alternate fuels.  I do not support the subsidies.

MR. RUSSERT:  So you've changed your mind.

SEN. McCAIN:  No, I haven't.  I have–I have–I have adjusted to the realities of the world we live in today, and if I don't adjust to those realities, then I would be stuck in the past.  I have to adjust to the realities.  The realities today are that we have a serious problem with climate change, which I have been concerned about for many years, and we have a far more serious challenge as associated with our dependence on foreign oil.

Not too long ago, a year or so ago, there was an attempted attack on a Saudi oil refinery.  If that attack had succeeded, the price of oil would have gone to $150 a barrel overnight.

MR. RUSSERT:  And the reality of being part of the Iowa caucuses had nothing to do with it.

SEN. McCAIN:  I don't–I don't–I can't respond to a, a statement like that.