George W. Bush

President hails cellulosic ethanol as a panacea

I’m offended: President Bush evidently hasn’t been following my string of posts about how cellulosic ethanol probably won’t ever be viable. Addressing a renewable-energy conference, the president fretted that the ethanol boom he set in motion is “beginning to affect the price of food.” He added: “So we got to do something about it.” And […]

Renewable energy subterfuge

The following is a guest essay by Daniel J. Weiss and Nick Kong. It was originally published on the Center for American Progress website.

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"Watch what we do, not we say," Attorney General John N. Mitchell accurately warned at the dawn of the Nixon administration. This could also be a fitting epitaph for President Bush's energy policies. Despite frequent claims of support for renewable energy over the years, the record shows consistent opposition to efforts to spur investments in clean wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources.

The subterfuge began when President Bush announced his administration's National Energy Policy on May 17, 2001. The White House's plan was based on recommendations provided to Vice President Cheney from coal, oil, nuclear and other dirty energy companies. The speech included a soothing nod to renewable electricity -- five weeks after the administration proposed slashing millions from renewable energy programs.

The routine has varied little since Bush first took office. President Bush pays lip service to clean energy technologies, while opposing many voluntary incentives and other efforts to promote these very same technologies. Often, these events occur only days apart.

Another attempt at sleight of hand will occur on Wednesday, March 5, when President Bush addresses the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference. This speech comes just seven days after the administration opposed House passage of the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act, H.R. 5351. This bill would extend tax credits to encourage producers and homeowners to employ wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy technologies. Without an extension, an estimated 116,000 construction workers and other employees will lose their jobs.

President Bush will no doubt use his speech to extol the virtues of clean energy technology incentives even while he prepares to wield his veto pen to stop legislation that would do just that. This will only be one event in a long string of Bush rhetoric that doesn't match reality:

Notable quotable

“Oh, yeah? That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.” — President George W. Bush, upon hearing that numerous analysts are predicting $4/gallon gasoline

Notable quotable

“I think actually the spending in the war might help with jobs. … I think this economy is down because we built too many houses, and the economy is adjusting.” — President George W. Bush, demonstrating his economic acumen

Dubious 2009 energy budget released

On the heels of giving away the (decorative) centerpiece of his climate technology effort, NeverGen FutureGen, Bush released a heartless and mindless FY09 energy budget yesterday.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, sent around an email on the President's Budget Request for FY2009 (I will post budget details later). Bingaman is "pleased to see overall growth in the DOE budget, particularly in the area of basic research," but critical of a number of dubious administration choices:

Obama is in no way ‘George Bush Lite’

I am a big fan of the climate website, DeSmogBlog. So I was shocked when, the day after his unprecedented victory in Iowa, DeSmogBlog gave Barack Obama "the inaugural 2007 SmogMaker Award for blowing smoke on global warming."

Gimme a break. How could anyone win that award any year -- let alone in its inaugural year -- when George W. Bush is still president? [Not to mention a year in which Lomborg and Inhofe continue their influential disinformation compaigns!]

After all, the "Prize honors those who sow confusion and delay on Climate Change." Seriously. Bush is easily the confuser and delayer of the year ... and the decade ... and he surely will be on the short list for the entire century. Yet DeSmog says Obama is "looking like George Bush lite." How can they make that claim? By misreading -- or failing to read -- Obama's terrific climate plan. DeSmogBlog claims:

But he is campaigning on a greenhouse gas reduction "target" that the U.S. won't have to meet for 42 years ...

While the world's leading scientific bodies tell us we need to act immediately to avoid catastrophic climate disruption, Obama has set his own target date at 2050, long past any opportunity for voters to hold him accountable.

Uh, no. In fact, his plan (PDF) explicitly states:

Obama will start reducing emissions immediately in his administration by establishing strong annual reduction targets, and he'll also implement a mandate of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Based on the links in their post, DeSmogBlog's research on Obama's climate apparently consists of reading a one-paragraph story on BusinessWire with Obama's statement on Bali -- which they link to not once, but twice! They claim he is an unrepentant coal supporter, based on a June 2007 Washington Post article about his support for his state's coal industry. And yet in his climate plan he bluntly commits:

What will it take to make 2008 great?

The following guest post is by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), originally published on Climate Progress. He is the co-author of Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy.

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Now that our New Year's Eve party hats are put away, it's time to look to the next year in the battle against global warming. In the year 2007, some good things did indeed happen on this front. Measures significantly improving car mileage standards and promoting the growth of renewable fuels were signed into law. But if 2007 was a year that could be considered in some ways good, then 2008 needs to be a year that will be great.

Nothing else will do. The cataclysms of one million square miles of ice melting in the Arctic, a several-fold increase in the rate of melting tundra, and the acceleration of melting in Greenland, foretell possible feedback mechanisms that demand a faster and more aggressive clean energy revolution than we even envisioned a year ago. Whatever we thought necessary on New Year's Day 2007 needs to be doubled in 2008.

So what will it take to make '08 great? Three things will do the trick.

Why not Eilperin?

After four separate posts bashing Peter Baker’s craptastic WaPo piece, I come to a simple question: Why did they have Baker write this piece instead of their environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin? She’s incredibly sharp, one of the best green reporters working today. I doubt she would have gone along with the spin as easily as […]

Tom Carper totally knows the president

(An on we go, in a series on the WaPo piece so bad it required numerous separate gripes.) Tom Carper would like you to know that he’s a) committed on global warming, and b) tight with the president: People find all sorts of ways to lobby President Bush. Sometimes it comes in the form of […]