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Honor Thy Father

Bush Senior's green car plan stalls

By Paul Rauber

You'd think that an order from the White House would carry some weight in Washington. But the Sierra Club has had to go to court to get the federal bureaucracy to abide by the Energy Policy Act, signed in 1992 by then-president George H. W. Bush, which ordered federal agencies to purchase increasing percentages of alternate-fuel vehicles.

The goal of the law, said Bush when he signed it, was to "place America upon a clear path toward a more prosperous, energy-efficient, environmentally sensitive, and economically secure future," by replacing 10 percent of U.S. gas consumption with alternative fuels by 2000, and 30 percent by 2010. But here it is 2002, and no federal agency, not even the EPA, has lived up to its purchasing obligations, leaving the feds at least 10,000 alternative vehicles short of a green fleet.

The original notion "was a fairly Republican idea," says Earthjustice attorney James Tutchton, who is suing the federal agencies on behalf of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. "The government would use its market power to buy vehicles, creating an infrastructure so state, municipal, and private fleets could follow."

Environmentalists are seeking a court order directing the agencies to follow the law. No word yet on the position of the current Bush administration. "They'd be hard-pressed to say this is a stupid law," Tutchton points out, "since his dad signed it."