The Bush administration’s National Energy Policy is full of earth loving suggestions, hope-inspiring figures and encouraging charts and graphs. All of these elements provide a clever distraction from the fact that the Policy is seriously lacking in actual substance. George Bush and Dick Cheney are expecting Americans to be pacified by empty promises while turning a blind eye to domestic drilling and the nation’s increasingly dangerous oil dependency.
For years, it has been the tireless rhetoric of environmentalists: America must break free of its oil addiction. But now, after Sept. 11, cutting our dependency on oil has never been more critical.
Bearing this in mind, it is unspeakably frustrating to watch President Bush throw all of the country’s weight
and resources behind his former employer, the oil industry. There are eco-friendly, and cost effective alternatives to oil dependency that are ready for public use, but they have been quickly shuffled aside to make room for Bush’s pro drilling decision making.
His quid-pro-quo actions scratch the oil industry’s back, while celebrating the rape and pillage of our
national parks for their paltry energy resources. However, environmental, economic and geo-political
pressures have inspired the recent release of the Bush administration’s National Energy Policy.
The policy contains 105 specific recommendations from the Dick Cheney-led National Energy Policy Development group. The challenge will be turning the recommendations into actual policy rather than just
placating propaganda. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Energy Policy killed more trees being published than it will manage to save in practice.
Environmentalists are touting a three-pronged approach that would provide the same outcome as the oil driven Bush system, but without the dear ecological costs. Energy efficiency, energy conservation and renewable energy are the green alternatives. The idea is to make machines more energy efficient, people more energy conscious and to provide renewable energy sources such as water, solar and wind power instead of oil and gasoline.
A recent article (“It’s Easy Being Green”), in the political /journalism watchdog magazine, “Mother Jones” points out that foreign car makers are way ahead of the game. Honda offers a Civic Hybrid and the Insight, while Toyota has the Prius. These cars look normal and cost the same. They use regular gas, but also electricity to power themselves. They require no special maintenance and are virtually identical to their energy un-efficient counterparts. The difference is that these cars get around 59 miles to the gallon. So you
save money and mother earth.
There’s a waiting list to get these hybrid cars, but for inexplicable reasons we don’t make them here.
The NEPD group recommends that “the president direct the Secretary of the Treasury to work with Congress to develop legislation to provide for a temporary Income tax credit available for the purchase of new hybrid or fuel-cell vehicles between 2002 and 2007.”
This hypothetical legislation would be an excellent way to encourage consumers to give hybrid a try. Unfortunately, the idea will be forced to navigate through a tangled bureaucracy.
Also, our country is brimming with natural resources to turn into power. Not the oil sitting under the national parks, but rather the breezes which blow on top of them. If we built a wind farm on the high plains, experts believe that the ceaseless winds would provide two times the energy the country requires.
Many nations are pouring their efforts into wind power as the cure for fossil-fuel dependency. There are wind farms already in place in America- even in Texas! Yet, the White House reports that only a pathetic .1
percent of our nation’s electricity is supplied by wind power. The NEPD group suggests funding for wind
power research but scientists have already managed to lower the cost of the systems by 80 percent in the
last few years. The billions of dollars which the NEPD group suggests should go towards research have a more immediate destination. The money should be put toward implementation. The wind power systems are ready and already in place in several other countries including Denmark, Germany, Spain and India. The administration is talking about tossing money at research to distract from their foot dragging in making wind power a feasible reality.
In the meantime, local legislators seem to be catching on. A dozen states, including Wisconsin, have laws that require power companies to get a percentage of their energy from renewables.
The “Improving Environmental Quality” section of the National Energy Policy spends a great deal of its time talking about reducing emissions. This is laudable, but also hypocritical, since America is the only
industrialized nation that refused to sign the Kyoto agreement at the last international conference on global warming.
The Energy Policy comes right out and admits to the problems with drilling away at nature, “Oil and gas
exploration and production, hydropower dams, power plants, pipelines and other energy-related projects
can potentially affect fish, wildlife and habitat.”
No kidding. But then the policy goes on to say that the administration will avoid this by just being really
sensitive to the issue while destroying nature. The NEPD group asserts that drilling is okay because the
environment will be saved using, technological advances, a strong commitment to environmental protection and the use of appropriate regulatory tools.
Meanwhile, the administration is supporting plans to develop 51,000 wells in Wyoming and Montana in order to extract methane gas from shallow coal beds. This project will create 20,000 miles of pipeline, 5300
miles of power line and 17,000 miles of roads. Though, I’m sure the animals won’t mind if we just explain to
them that we’re strongly committed to their protection. Ironic that it has taken 300 million years to create this natural landscape and only one administration to destroy it.
The bottom line is that we must reduce our dependency on oil. The NEPD group has come up with a series of strong suggestions for facilitating this energy shift but it’s not strong enough. Our nation’s oil addiction must be broken with the greatest expediency, we don’t have time to sit around and talk about a brave new world of non fossil-fuel energy. The alternatives already exist and this administration will harm us
dearly if it continues to sweep them under the proverbial rug.
Kate MacDonald is the Badger Herald’s former ArtsEtc. editor. She is majoring in economics, film and
journalism.