US News and World Report exposes the truth behind the presidential hoopla over alternative energy sources; namely, this administration hasn't put its money where its mouth is. Here are some points pulled from the article, "
A Lack of Energy."
- Funding for the National Renewable Energy Lab, which Bush visited after the State of the Union to further tout his energy initiative was down 11 percent from the year before and Bush's proposed budget increase "would not even restore the lab to 2005 levels." That helps explain the job cuts.
- "Adjusted for inflation, Bush's new proposal still amounts to less than half the funds spent on solar when a cardigan-wearing President Carter was waging the 'moral equivalent of war' on fossil energy."
- Bush promises to ramp up renewable energy funding by 22 percent, to $771 million. That's still "less than 1 percent of the $55 billion the federal government spends annually on research, nearly half of which is devoted to healthcare."
Bush isn't the only one who comes in for criticism in the article, however. Congress is also guilty of derailing energy research by funneling funds into pork projects, including $2.5 million boondoggle aimed at developing a hydrogen bus system in Sen. Harry Reid's home state of Nevada, despite the fact that hydrogen buses aren't commercially available yet.
2 Comments:
I'm not suprised about the lack of funds for RE. Bush knows RE is the answer, but plays this game. In Home Power magazine there is an article which cited a comment from Bush himself saying "Imagine the day when we can power our homes with solar panels! We aren't there yet, but it's soon to come."
Funny, because our home is powered entirely with solar and wind, so we are living proof the technology is there. Like I said, it's a game, because the White House has solar panels on it. It's too bad, because his game is messing with our future.
Yes, solar panels on the White House. That's interesting, isn't it? First Carter put them on, then Nancy Reagan had them taken off, then George W. Bush put them back to heat the pool and to power a maintenance shed or something like that. Anyway, it's the kind of thing you would expect the White House to publicize, wouldn't ya? Not this administration. It was all done very quietly. Similarly, the ranch in Crawford is purportedly pretty "green": It's small and uses geothermal heating and cooling and wastewater recycling. What to make of it? Is Bush (or perhaps Laura Bush) a closet environmentalist? What gives?
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