SFgate.com Monday, January 23, 2006

Sen. John McCain said efforts by both Democrats and Republicans to reduce the influence of lobbyists are not addressing the core of the problem.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," the Arizona Republican renewed his criticism of "earmarks," late additions to bills that often provide millions of dollars for lawmakers' pet projects.

"If we don't fix the earmarking, then I can assure you the corruption will go on," McCain said.

He described an "earmark" as "a single provision in a line that nobody's ever seen or heard of, and most times we don't find out until days or weeks afterwards

"Then you've got a process that breeds corruption," he said. "And it makes good people do bad things."

McCain said lobbying reform promoted last week by both parties doesn't deal with earmarking because many politicians perceive it to be "their bread and butter and preserves their incumbency."

Corruption that stems from lobbying is a bipartisan problem, McCain said. "I think it's a bipartisan scandal because the lobbying is out of control," McCain said.

Sen. John Kerry called the corruption surrounding convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff a GOP scandal. The Massachusetts Democrat pointed to the party that dominates Washington politics.

"They run the House of Representatives. They run the Senate. They have the White House. They're controlling who goes on the judiciary," Kerry, the Democrats' nominee for president in 2004, said on ABC's "This Week."

"They have not done the things necessary in order to press forward on this," Kerry said.

McCain, a potential presidential contender in 2008, also said the U.S. must explore alternate energy sources to avoid being held hostage by foreign oil producers such as Iran or Venezuela.

Recent actions by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and by Iran's leaders make it clear that the United States will be vulnerable as long as it remains dependent on foreign energy, McCain said.

"We've got to get quickly on a track to energy independence from foreign oil, and that means, among other things, going back to nuclear power," McCain said on Fox News Sunday.

"We better understand the vulnerabilities that our economy, and our very lives, have when we're dependent on Iranian mullahs and wackos in Venezuela," said McCain, who challenged President George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000.

Iran is OPEC's second-largest producer. Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, with the largest proven oil reserves outside of the Mideast.

Chavez, a frequent U.S. critic, accuses foreign oil companies of having looted Venezuela. He has promised that his socialist "revolution" is freeing the country from "imperialist" interests and restoring its sovereignty.

by "wackos" in Venezuela — an apparent reference to Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's populist president.