NEWPORT, MI — John McCain rebuked his Democratic rival for his opposition to the immediate construction of additional nuclear power plants during a visit to a Michigan plant Tuesday.

“Senator Obama has said that expanding our nuclear power plants quote ‘doesn’t make sense for America’…he also says no to nuclear storage and no to reprocessing. I couldn’t disagree more,” McCain said following a tour of the Enrico Fermi plant operated by Detroit Edison.

Responding to recent Obama attacks that he is too close to big oil because he has received more than $2.1 million in donations from the oil and gas industry during the campaign, McCain suggested that his opponent is actually the one who is in the pocket of those executives.

“I think he might be a little bit confused because when the energy bill came to the floor of the senate full of goodies and breaks for the oil companies I voted against it. Senator Obama voted for it. People care not only what you say but how you vote,” McCain added, referring to the 2005 White House energy bill that included tax breaks for the industry.

For his part, Obama responded ‘touchez’ to the McCain refrain that he is “Dr. No” when it comes to energy policy and defended his vote for the bill.

“He voted against fuel efficiency standards for cars, he opposed legislation to provide tax credits for more efficient cars, he voted against renewable sources of energy, against solar power, against wind power, against biofuels, against an energy bill that despite its flaws, represented the largest investment in renewable energy in the history of this country - he was Dr. No,” Obama told voters today in Ohio. He also defended his suggestion that Americans inflate their tires to the proper PSI to save on energy costs as accurate, saying of Republicans, “it’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”

The Obama campaign also responded to McCain’s consistent attack that Obama opposes nuclear power by noting that the Democrat supports additional nuclear plant construction, but only when decisions are made about a safer method of securing and disposing of nuclear waste.

“Barack Obama supports safe and secure nuclear energy…(and) it is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power as an option. However, before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, Obama thinks key issues must be addressed including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton in a statement to reporters.

At a town hall meeting in Dayton, Ohio, Barack Obama focused his remarks on energy - something the two candidates have been sparring over for weeks. Obama has called McCain’s gas tax holiday a gimmick and says off shore drilling won’t have an impact for years. Neither fix, Obama has said, addresses the larger need to ween the country off of our dependence on oil - which McCain hasn’t addressed in his 26 years in office.

On the other side, the McCain camp has said that Obama doesn’t mind record high gas prices. Just today their campaign sent a statement to reporters reading, “Today, Barack Obama criticized wind, hydropower, domestic oil drilling, gas tax relief and nuclear power but did not offer a single proposal to bring down gas prices. The difference is Obama’s ‘Dr. No’ approach believes that every energy source has a problem and John McCain believes that every energy source can be part of the solution Americans need right now.”

In fact Obama did point out flaws with wind, hydropower, and nuclear power today at his town hall today when a voter expressed concerns on storing nuclear waste. Obama told the crowd that we have to utilize experts to figure out a way to store the waste safely because nuclear power has “a very big advantage” in that it doesn’t cause global warming and concluded that “nuclear power is gonna have to be a part of the mix. I know some people don’t like to hear that, but there is no perfect energy source.”

So what did “Dr. No” take issue with? Read part of his answer below:

“Every energy source has a problem, even energy sources that sound really clean, like for example hydropower. I was in Oregon, it turns out it’s messing up the salmon runs and the fish are being affected. You know wind is a great energy source except sometimes it’s not windy…I don’t think we can eliminate any single energy source….Solar, wind, biofuels - all these different approaches we should try and make different investments and figure out what works.”

While it may be a stretch for the McCain campaign to characterize the presumptive Democratic nominee as “Dr. No” when it comes to alternative energy, Obama also got in on the action. “[McCain's] voted against alternative sources of energy.  Against clean biofuels.  Against solar power.  Against wind power.  Against an energy bill that represented the largest investment in renewable sources of energy in the history of this country. So when John McCain talks about the failure of politicians in Washington to do anything about our energy crisis, understand that John McCain should look in the mirror because he has been a part of that failure,” Obama said of his Republican rival.

In Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, the three candidates—Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama—clashed over the issue of nuclear power and what to do about Yucca Mountain, a national repository for nuclear waste that is opposed by many Nevada voters.

The dispute began when Clinton said that Edwards voted in support of the nuclear waste facility, while she had “consistently and persistently been against” it. She also claimed that one of Obama’s supporters—the Exelon Corporation—was involved in funding the project.

In response to Clinton’s remarks, Edwards implied that he had changed his decision based on new scientific information and forged documentation that had emerged regarding the waste dump. He added that, unlike Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, he is completely opposed to the building of more nuclear power plants—a point he so often makes when addressing voters on the campaign trail. Edwards said that Obama is “open to the possibility of additional power plants” and that Clinton has said she is “agnostic” on the subject.

Obama defended himself, saying that he has long been a critic of Yucca Mountain, yet added that the country should “create a menu of energy options” in handling the storage of nuclear waste and “see where the science and the technology and the entrepreneurship of the American people take us.”

The debate over nuclear power will undoubtedly influence Nevada voters, particularly those who are undecided, in the state’s caucuses on Saturday. Polls indicate that an overwhelming number of Nevadans, both Republicans and Democrats, strongly oppose federal plans to dump the nation’s nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain—and believe it to be a key issue in deciding which presidential candidate to caucus for.