McCain and Obama's environmental policy differences a matter of degree In an August poll of 400 people commissioned for The Salt Lake Tribune and other Western newspapers, just 2 percent of Utah respondents said the environment was the single most important issue facing the country today. And even on issues of particular importance in the West, environment came in fifth, at 8 percent. More important were drilling on public lands (34 percent), immigration (18 percent), water issues (11 percent), and growth and sprawl (9 percent). McCain led the push in the late '80s to rethink the way the Glen Canyon Dam is operated to protect the Grand Canyon National Park downstream. He introduced, with Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman, the U.S. Senate's first climate-change legislation in 2003, and watched it get voted down twice. The GOP nominee also has continued to oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. That McCain has let his environmental record and proposals slip into the background might simply be an effort to shore up credentials within the party that has the power to help get him elected president, Patterson said. "It's a reflection," the political scientist said, "of the intricate dance Senator McCain has been doing all along."....So we have to wait until after the elections to find out what kind of a dancing partner McCain will be? What is this "intricate dance"? Is it a two-step, a waltz, or will he boogie all over the West to please the eastern establishment? On the other hand, when it comes to environmental issues, I ain't even in the same dance hall with Obama.