McCain: No to storm fund; yes to NASA money

Orlando Sentinel–August 19, 2008

Jim Stratton and Robert Block
Sentinel Staff Writers

With Florida bracing for a potential hurricane, Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that he sympathizes with homeowners battered by soaring insurance costs, but he was not prepared to endorse a national risk pool as a way to bring those prices down.

Instead, McCain said states threatened by the storms should form a regional alliance to protect themselves.

That’s “something that, I think, needs to be worked out particularly among the states . . . that have hurricanes,” McCain said on his campaign bus from Orlando to Cocoa. “Why in the world,” he asked, should states like Arizona and Montana bear the Gulf Coast’s financial burden?

In his comments, McCain did not acknowledge that a national fund is supported by his chief Florida backers — led by Gov. Charlie Crist — as well as his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama.

A catastrophe fund would provide backup coverage once a state’s insured losses exceeded a certain amount. Proponents say it would lower residents’ insurance costs and ensure claims are paid after a major storm.

McCain was in town to address the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention and to meet with space-industry leaders in Brevard County.

To about 4,000 VFW members, he stressed his national-security experience and his commitment to the military. He also said that Obama — who’s scheduled to speak today — lacked the judgment to be commander in chief.

“In matters of national security,” McCain said, “good judgment will be at a premium in the term of the next president — as we were all reminded 10 days ago by events in the nation of Georgia.”

McCain has built his own campaign on his record of more than 20 years in the Senate, his status as a Vietnam War hero and his experience in international affairs. He has sought to portray Obama as a shape-shifting political opportunist with a thin public sum.

The Obama campaign responded that the Illinois senator showed superior judgment by opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The war, the campaign said, “took our eye off the real enemy — Osama bin Laden.”

Spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh also said McCain was the candidate changing positions on issues such as immigration reform and the Bush tax cuts. “John McCain would know far more than we would about what a total 180 looks like,” Marsh said.

Florida key in election

Florida is again crucial to the national election. An average of polls taken since late July shows McCain up by less than 2 percentage points, an indication that Obama’s charisma and discontent with the GOP have put the state in play.

Monday, McCain said veterans were critical to his effort to win the state.

“It’s going to be an important vote,” he said after his VFW speech. “One of the pieces of the puzzle that bring us victory.”

McCain also tried to score points with voters on the Space Coast, meeting privately with about 18 industry leaders who prodded him to support additional funding to speed NASA’s development of new rockets. Others urged him to keep flying the space shuttle beyond its 2010 retirement date.

By the end of the meeting, McCain seemed in broad agreement with the policy announced by Obama on Saturday: supporting congressional efforts to secure $2 billion more for NASA to develop the Ares rocket and try to narrow the five-year gap between the retirement of the space shuttle and the first launch of Ares.

Reduce reliance on Russia

The executives, from both civilian and military space programs, also said the next president needs to reduce U.S. reliance on Russia to get astronauts to the international space station after the shuttle’s retirement. McCain agreed, saying it is unacceptable for the U.S. to have to rely on the Russians, especially given the current conflict in Georgia.

Several executives urged extending the life of the space shuttle, with the most direct appeal coming from Mike McCulley, formerly an astronaut and top executive with the shuttle’s prime contractor United Space Alliance.

“We are going to look up one night and see this $100 billion [space station] going by with no Americans on it,” McCulley said. “That just makes me shudder . . . The only way that you cannot have a gap is to continue to fly our existing system, and that is the shuttle.”

McCain, however, questioned how to certify the space shuttle as safe to fly beyond 2010. The Columbia disaster investigators recommended that the orbiter not be flown beyond 2010 without a safety recertification, a complicated and expensive process. That said, McCain indicated that he is not against extending the shuttle if necessary.

As for funding, McCain told reporters that he supported an additional $2 billion in NASA funding, but he said the agency must do a better job of setting priorities and communicating them to taxpayers.

“I intend to set our priorities at NASA and to make sure existing programs are scrutinized and make sure they’re most effective,” McCain said. “But space is still the last frontier. I believe the American people will support it.”