McCain issues green challenge to carmakers

LOS ANGELES: Republican White House contender John McCain on Monday laid down the gauntlet to automakers to extend the great tradition of US ingenuity by developing zero-emission engines.

McCain, the rival to Democrat Barack Obama, offered a 300 million dollar federal prize and tax credits to the automakers as he hammered the election theme of alternative energy at a time of sky-high fuel prices.

In a speech in Fresno, California, McCain said the US government should get off its fixation with corn-based ethanol as an alternative to gasoline-powered engines.

Obama, senator for farm-heavy Illinois, supports ethanol subsidies and high tariffs on Brazilian imports of the agrarian fuel derived from sugar cane instead of corn.

But McCain said that through those subsidies and tariffs, "our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure," he said.

"My administration will issue a Clean Car Challenge to the automakers of America, in the form of a single and substantial tax credit based on the reduction of carbon emissions," the Arizona senator said. "For every automaker who can sell a zero-emissions car, we will commit a 5,000 dollar tax credit for each and every customer who buys that car."

McCain attacked Democrats, and by implication Obama, who want the United States to sue the OPEC oil cartel on anti-competition grounds, "as if reason or cajolery had never been tried before."

The United States should instead look to its own efforts, said the Republican, who last week called for the lifting of a federal ban on offshore oil drilling, a position derided by Obama as a political "gimmick."

"I further propose we inspire the ingenuity and resolve of the American people by offering a 300 million dollar prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars," McCain said.

"This is one dollar for every man, woman and child in the US, a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency -- and should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs."

Carmakers have struggled to bring down the cost of fuel cell technology to commercially practical levels, to make the batteries last long enough for typical drivers, and to roll out sources of power on the road.

McCain, however, stressed the legacy of US inventiveness, through Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers to the Apollo moon landings, the silicon chip and the Internet.

"For all the troubles and dangers our energy vulnerability presents, we know that we can overcome them, because we have overcome far worse problems and met far greater goals," he said.