Articles by David Roberts

Hubbard on the commitment that has continued to exist

Josh Marshall draws attention to a briefing by National Economic Council Director Al Hubbard on President Bush's new four-point energy plan for covering his ass lowering gas prices. It's hard to pick the most pathetic, revealing part. Josh's favorite has to do with a comparison between Iraq's oil and the oil in the Arctic Refuge. But I think this brief exchange takes the cake:

Q Has the White House considered any sort -- has the White House considered any sort of wider conservation campaign to reduce demand?

DIRECTOR HUBBARD: Well, we announced during Katrina a commitment to -- for conservation measures in the government, and that commitment has not declined at all -- I mean, has continued to exist. And, again, we encourage all Americans to think about conservation as they go about their daily lives.

Chafee insures Wehrum confirmation; Roberts insures enduring shame

Looks like it's crow-eating time for yours truly. A while back I defended the Sierra Club's decision to endorse Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI). Then last week, to make matters worse, I smugly implied that enviros should be thankful that Chafee's around, because he might save us from Bush's nominee to head air-pollution programs at EPA, the stinktastic William Wehrum.

Well, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted to confirm Wehrum, on a strict party-line vote. The vote count was 10-8; Chafee cast the key pro-confirmation vote.

So much for that theory!

(h/t to FO at Clean Air Watch)

No time to walk

Passed on without comment:

Gov. Ed Rendell yesterday called on President Bush to slap a windfall profits tax on oil companies as a way to offset skyrocketing gasoline prices for consumers.

"It is simply bad economic policy to let profiteering continue unabated," he said at a news conference held at an Exxon/Mobil gasoline station two blocks from the Capitol.

Mr. Rendell drove to the news conference even though the gas station was close to the Capitol. He said he was running behind schedule on a busy day and didn't have time to walk.

(via R-Squared)

Jane Jacobs

The New York Times is running a long and fascinating appreciation of Jane Jacobs, who died yesterday. I like this:

She came to see prevalent planning notions, which involved bulldozing low-rise housing in poor neighborhoods and building tall apartment buildings surrounded by open space to replace them, as a superstition akin to early 19th-century physicians' belief in bloodletting.

"There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder," she wrote in "Death and Life," "and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served."

Removing impediments to the "real order that is struggling to exist and to be served" -- you could do worse.