Wondering what to make of this?
President Bush responded to a Supreme Court environmental ruling by settling on regulatory changes that don’t need congressional approval, the White House said Monday.
Bush is announcing the steps he is directing his administration to take in a Rose Garden appearance later Monday.
Read on down a little bit:
In his State of the Union address in January, Bush set a goal of reducing gas consumption by 20 percent over 10 years. Under his plan, this would be accomplished by increasing the use of alternative fuels to 35 billion gallons by 2017 and boosting fuel efficiency standards in new vehicles.
…
“He will ask the administration to start implementing the 20-in-10 program through regulatory action,” [White House spokesman Tony] Snow said. “At the same time, he will continue to urge Congress to pass legislation to advance the goal.”
You’ll recall that the fuel-economy program described in Bush’s SOTU speech was rather … weak. And suffice to say, funneling a bunch of subsidies to Big Corn and Big Coal does not constitute a "response" to the Supreme Court ruling, which was about the EPA regulating CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. At least as described by the AP, this isn’t that.
Update [2007-5-14 11:27:47 by David Roberts]: That’s the big news? A weak-ass alternative fuels plan by 2008? How the mighty have fallen.
