Bush plan "a joke"

Last week, President Bush strolled out to the Rose Garden, calmly approached the podium and proudly announced just what he planned to do about climate change before he leaves office: absolutely nothing.

Yet somehow, his empty words have been a hot topic of debate. I really do wish the media would stop treating this as if we need to discuss whether or not he actually did something. Well, he didn’t, and even the slightest bit of scrutiny proves it. A few key points on the President’s speech:

1) The President’s plan is a joke. To recap, President Bush aims to level off US global warming pollution emissions by 2025. While that may sound like a plan to the casual observer, trust me, it doesn’t do anything. While Bush routinely ignores or denies the science and data coming out of EPA, one particular release he may have wanted to pay attention to (especially considering it came just days before his release) was the recent announcement that US GHG emissions decreased in 2006 by 1.1%, which EPA attributes to a combination of factors including a warmer than average winter and high fuel prices. So, it appears that we already surpassed the President’s 2025 goal two years ago. Upon learning this information, one is left wondering just what the President might feel inclined to do. Well, Mr. President, any ideas?


2) The President tried to claim credit for an Energy Bill passed late last year when in reality he did little more than issue veto threats to stronger versions of the bill that passed the House before the ink had even dried on the vote tallies. When all was said and done, two important policies were left on the cutting room floor, both specifically tagged by the Bush Administration as veto-worthy. The first was a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) that would require 15% of our energy to be produced by clean, renewable energy by 2020. The second was a repeal of taxpayers subsidies to big oil companies that even President Bush said were unnecessary ( way back when oil was only $55 per barrel mind you). Don’t get me wrong, passing the first increase in vehicle miles per gallon standards in 32 years was a huge victory, not to mention the numerous efficiency policies and incentives that will save consumers bundles on their energy bills, but this victory happened in spite of the President, not thanks to him.

3) The President’s criteria for climate legislation are the same criteria he has stuck to in the first 7-years of his Administration. Basically, let technology drive everything and don’t hurt the economy. Sadly, the President has proven a very poor practitioner of either one given his need to preserve and even increase subsidies to 19th Century energy technologies and his complete denial of what constitutes a strong, healthy economy. While technology and innovation are clearly a piece of the solution, Bush’s words strike even more hollow when he refuses to shift taxpayer money away from big oil companies and send it to renewable energy and energy efficiency. The President also chooses to use the same old scare tactics about the costs of taking on global warming claiming economic Armageddon. Here is my question: What would be a bigger economic stimulus package than fundamentally recreating the ways we produce and use energy in this country? Moreover, our economy has always been driven by innovation, not by holding on to dirty technologies of the past. If the President is serious about investing in new technology, then he needs to do it and not use the power of his office to keep us dangerously addicted to oil and other fossil fuels.

Here’s the bottom line. The scientific community is telling us that global emissions need to peak around 2015, ten years before the President’s goal of ‘stabilizing’ US emissions. The good news is that we can do this and there is plenty of evidence to prove it. Sadly, this Administration has little use for facts or data or logic or reason for that matter. How much longer will we have to wait for this Administration to come around and realize that global warming is real and that we need to act?

As Thomas Paine once opined, “Time makes more converts than reason.” We are in dire need of more reason because we are running out of time.