Americans must choose an energy future. No decision facing us today has greater implications for the health of our economy, our communities, and the environment that sustains us. Which way will we go?
A new report, the “Clean Energy Blueprint,” proves that energy efficiency and renewable power development are in the nation’s best interest if we want job growth, enhanced national security and a cleaner environment.
Measured against the Blueprint, the White House energy plan is a fraud — simple payback for contributions from oil, gas, coal and nuclear industry cronies. It would protect their profits and perpetuate their pollution at public expense.
Neither the White House nor the Republican leadership shows any appetite for developing what America really needs: innovative policies that point toward a cleaner, more efficient and less oil-dependent energy future. Instead, the White House and its Congressional allies continue to push a retrograde strategy — of which Arctic drilling was just one component — that faithfully caters to President Bush's friends in the oil, gas and coal industries and remains heavily biased toward the production of fossil fuels.
On this score, the energy bills now being drawn up on Capitol Hill offer no more hope than the 2002 models. Last year's energy plan, which mercifully expired in a conference committee, was top-heavy with subsidies for industry and light on incentives for energy efficiency, alternative fuels and other forms of conservation. The news from the relevant Congressional committees suggests more of the same. Just last week, Edward Markey of Massachusetts offered his colleagues on the House energy committee a proposal to increase fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks, including SUVs, by about 20 percent by 2010. This is not an unreasonable goal, given Detroit's technological capabilities, and would save 1.6 million barrels a day, more than double the recent imports from Iraq and far more than the Arctic refuge could produce in the same time frame. The committee crushed the idea.
The last two years have given the country plenty of reasons to re-examine its energy policies: a power crisis in California, the attacks of 9/11 and now a war in the very heart of the biggest oil patch in the world.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney claim to be public servants. But they put the interests of their cronies and contributors first. On energy, they’re leading us down the wrong path.
Eliminating government subsidies for fossil fuels would encourage fuel conservation and the timely development of enough renewable energy systems to sustain us in the post fossil-fuel era.
By Joseph Kahn, March 20, 2001
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham says nation faces major energy supply crisis akin to oil embargoes of 1970's and indicates the Bush administration intends to overhaul regulations to ease fuel exploration and help energy production and distribution. He says only major push to eliminate environmental and other regulatory obstacles to increased supplies will alleviate shortages.
NOTE: Bush appears to be unwilling or unable to lead an effective and timely transition to the post-petroleum era. Bush's current energy plan accelerates environmental devastation and assures faster depletion of remaining fossil fuel supplies.
A Smarter National Energy Policy for Today and the Future, a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, and the Tellus Institute is an authoritative analysis comparing the “business-as-usual” approach embodied in the White House energy plan against a package of common sense, clean-energy policies. The results are astounding.
And Other Tales of Domestic Energy Insecurity
by Amory B. Lovins
Replacing Mideastern oil with even more vulnerable domestic systems the cornerstone of the White House energy plan—would decrease energy security, not increase it. http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/10/30/5.html
Energy Efficiency and the Economy
by Joseph Romm
An energy efficiency stimulus package would directly create tens of thousands of jobs manufacturing and installing energy-efficient hardware; save corporate America billions of dollars each year for the life of the hardware; minimize the likelihood of power outages; and dramatically reduce air pollution. What other stimulus strategy can match those results?
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/10/30/3.html
by David Morris
Kenneth Lay turned a sleepy, even stodgy, energy system—that nevertheless was the world’s lowest-cost and most reliable energy system — into a go-go, take-no-prisoners, wildly competitive system. Was it for the better?
AUDIO and TEXT produced by Steven Rosenfeld.
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/03/index.html
by Jennifer Bauduy
“I don’t want us to be documented in a book—‘Oh, they used to live like this. This was one of the last surviving native cultures of America, and then oil development happened.’”
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/03/2.html
by the TomPaine.com Staff
Faith-based Politics... Profiteering in Public Schools... The Sacking of Science as Interior... Deserting Ethics for Ethic’s Sake... Wartime Democracy... and more.
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/12/04/index.html
The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by
using the same thinking that created the situation.
— Albert Einstein, scientist (1879-1955)