On 11/28/06, jdiebremse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Its my understanding that Bush has actually rather aggressively supported research into alternative energy.
You mean like the $3.6 million cut in the Clean Cities program for FY 2007? Or is it the way that the 2007 budget proposes to spend the same amount (without even adjusting for inflation, so it is really less) as the 2001 budget on energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy resources, even though we invested more every year since then? Or the elimination of the Building Codes Training and Assistance Program, which develops energy-efficient building codes? Or perhaps you meant the Clean Coal Initiative, to which Bush promised $2 billion in funding, but has only actually spent $535 and is proposing $5 million this year? Or maybe the cuts in funding for the Federal Energy Management Program, which improves efficiency in the federal government's use of energy? Could it be the $31 billion in energy tax credits and spending that had nothing to do with alternative energy? Is drilling in ANWR an alternative energy program? Since the administration focuses on energy supply, rather than demand or efficiency, perhaps that's it. Sure, they've put some money into wind power and hydrogen... but they do it by helping out certain competitors in the marketplace rather than treating it as let's-put-a-man-on-the-moon kind of initiative. There's no goal except to help out those companies that the incentives address. And I can still get a tax break by buying an SUV, which is except from fuel efficiency standards... and those policies by themselves completely dwarf the investments in alternative energy. And he named the former Exxon/Mobil CEO to develop energy policy. Gee, I wonder what that guy's point of view might be? Perhaps he will just shrug off all his old rhetoric about how global warming is a fraud and his criticisms of alternative energy, now that he works for The People instead of the stockholders. Or perhaps it's the research we're doing in Iraq to gain access to that nation's energy as an alternative, since that's where we're really investing our time, attention, money and blood. It was also a friendly dig at a fellow list-member. Then I'll take it as friendly... feel free to smack me if I turn hypocrite and expect you to have all the answers -- or all the responsibility, which was more my point. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
