Whom McCain and Obama Listen to on the Environment

Obama

Obama's chief energy adviser Jason Grumet is the executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan group of energy experts founded in 2001. Grumet is also the president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, established in 2007 by four former Senate majority leaders, including Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, to address energy and other national issues. Jason Furman is Obama's economic policy director, a Brookings Institution senior fellow, and a trusted adviser on the environment. In a 2007 Brookings policy paper, Furman advocated private sector incentives and government support for "long-run speculative energy technologies."

McCain

Senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin served as the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005 and won bipartisan praise during his tenure. He is also the former chief economist of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. As a noted tax policy expert, he is a strong proponent of cap-and-trade systems to reduce greenhouse emissions. James Woolsey is McCain's top energy adviser and was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993 to 1995. He has been influential in shaping McCain's frequently heard argument that energy security is a matter of national security. Woolsey is a big proponent of using electric cars to promote oil independence.