innovative same-old

The problem is, I'll never get a chance to have a one-on-one with the president. So this will have to do.

Bush orders cut in gasoline consumption

Specifics are vague, but rules to be in effect by end of '08
Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Jennifer Loven
ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Bush's announcement yesterday came as the average national price of a gallon of gas hit a record high, $3.07.

WASHINGTON - President Bush, prodded by a Supreme Court ruling, said yesterday that his administration will decide how to regulate pollution from new motor vehicles by the time he leaves office.

That sounds like every promise ever made by someone not wanting to commit to the situation. It sounds like "We must do lunch sometime." Uh-huh.

Bush signed an executive order directing federal agencies to craft regulations that will "cut gasoline consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions from motor vehicles." He ordered the agencies - the departments of Transportation, Agriculture and Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency - to have the rules in place by the end of 2008.

The announcement came as gasoline prices hit a new record. The average national price of a gallon of gas reached $3.07 yesterday, above the previous peak of $3.06 set soon after Hurricane Katrina hit at the end of August 2005.

"When it comes to energy and the environment, the American people expect common sense and they expect action," the president said at a news conference. "We're taking action by taking the first steps toward rules that will make our economy stronger, our environment cleaner and our nation more secure for generations to come."

I'm not sure the American people expect common sense. They allowed you to get into and remain in office despite sufficient suspicion that you got in by sneaking in a craftily cut side door.

And when you say "we're taking action, just who are the "we" you're referring to? I understand "we the people." Somehow I don't get the sense I, as one of the people, am included in your use of the word "we."

You say this will make "our" economy stronger. Who is included in your use of the word "our?" Your people? You? The wealthy and powerful? The economy in my state isn't so hot. Increasingly the food pantries are depleted. Increasingly the working poor don't have affordable health care insurance. Increasingly both parents have to work full-time and find day care for their children simply in order to live in their homes. So. Who's economy are you thinking will become stronger? Will whatever "rules" "your" people dream up bring jobs back to our state? Or will the increasing costs of cleaning up the environment drive the corporations to other countries where the costs of doing business are cheaper?

What those rules would be was unclear.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the president's position opposing mandatory emissions caps has not changed. While recognizing that greenhouse gases are a serious contributor to climate change, Bush has said that anything other than a voluntary approach would unduly harm the nation's economy.

Uh-huh. Voluntary. Every playground bully loves that. The biggest baddest bullies will continue bullying as long as there are people to bully.

"The question is: Do you try to set up a mandatory system or do you try to set up an innovation-based system?" Snow said. "The president prefers innovation."

The president has shown the world he prefers power, oil, profits, and books read in the upside down position.

But the Democratic-controlled Congress is considering a number of bills that would impose a cap on emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading gas linked to global warming, and a carbon trade system.

"It appears that the president wants to run out the clock to the end of his term without addressing our energy needs," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

I'll save my disappointment in the Democratic-controlled Congress for another time…

Last month, the Supreme Court declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and thus can be regulated by the EPA. The court also said that the "laundry list" of reasons the administration has given for declining to do so are insufficient, ruling that the EPA must regulate carbon dioxide if it finds that it endangers public health.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said a draft proposal should be ready by fall, and that it will include a finding on whether carbon dioxide is a health threat. He suggested there could be no regulation if no threat is found, or if the agency determines there is "some other reason and rational explanation for why it was not necessary to regulate."

It seems the EPA hasn't been doing a good job lately of EPing. Is it true funding has been reduced?

Bush said that, in writing any rules, agency officials must take into account the views of the general public, scientific knowledge, available technology, the cost and the effect the rules would have on safety.

Hmmm. Would that be the same innovative thinking used when he decided to invade Iraq?

A report this month from a United Nations network of more than 2,000 scientists estimates that the world must stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere within eight years to keep global temperatures from spiking to disastrous levels.

The environmental group Environmental Defense said the effort "will fall far short of fixing the climate problem" without mandatory caps on carbon emissions.

Bush and administration officials said the process will take time because it is so complicated. Johnson indicated that, at the least, the new rules could implement the president's plan for reducing gas consumption by 20 percent over 10 years.

Simplifying our individual lifestyles isn't complicated, and eventually that's what it comes down to. What's complicated is for the big boys and girls to figure out how to maintain their stranglehold on our country and its economy…legally. Morally.

As announced in Bush's State of the Union address in January, this plan envisions increasing the country's use of alternative fuels to 35 billion gallons by 2017. It also would give the administration the ability to rewrite mileage rules for passenger cars.