Energy Company Policy
Comment Energy Company Policy George Bush's idea of an energy policy is to dish out goodies to his buddies in the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear power industries, hold hands with Saudi Crown Prince...
...currently imports from the Persian Gulf or could ever take from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, combined," he said...
...We can protect our children from the air pollution that spews from cars and power plants...
...The bill designates one company, Texas Energy Center, based in DeLay's hometown of Sugar Land, to be responsible for dispensing the money to the companies...
...In keeping with its trashing of environmental protections, the House energy bill falls woefully short on conservation...
...Part of the impetus behind deregulation is allowing corporations to pollute with impunity...
...Bush has a seemingly unquenchable desire to dole out favors to the oil giants, which have amassed enormous profits as petroleum sells at $50 a barrel...
...They've gotten their way in banking, for instance, and now they're after the utilities...
...A growing economy causes us to consume more energy," he said cheerily...
...It "provides liability protections to producers of the gasoline-additive MTBE," the consumer group says...
...We can protect our coasts and the wild lands left to us for safekeeping...
...But it's Christmastime year round for big business...
...The Cheney report in the spring of 2001 predicted the United States would be more dependent on Middle East oil in two decades than it is now...
...Overconsumption is not a concept that he seemed to grasp...
...So their servants in the House added two additional criteria for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to consider before it can raise the standard: safety and the effect on employment...
...States now would be able only to "consult" with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which would have the final say...
...And these go way beyond drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a foolish proposal that will amount to just a drop in the global bucket...
...Six executives of the Texas Energy Center have given $8,000 to DeLay's campaign in the last year, Public Citizen notes...
...He pays lip service to energy independence but provides no way to get there...
...And his energy speech almost two weeks later, while more high-minded in its rhetoric, reinforces this retrograde path...
...But this is paltry stuff...
...Bush was especially high on nuclear power...
...So if a state wanted to have tighter regulations than the feds, as California sued to do in 2004, it would no longer have legal grounds to prevail...
...Jim Presswood, NRDC "ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley would love to buy up utilities and suck all the value out of them, and consumers will be stuck with the bill...
...And it gives special dispensation to some pals of DeLay, providing up to $2 billion "in direct payments to oil and natural gas corporations to drill in deepwater wells...
...But car companies and the oil giants don't want that to happen...
...Its chief measures in this regard are to expand daylight savings time for two months and to provide a tax credit to homeowners for sealing up windows and doors and insulating walls...
...It would be "extending deadlines for cleanup of ground-level ozone air pollution in areas that violate the federal clean air standard," the group adds...
...And it would repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 so that any company could buy into the utility business...
...Army to Iraq...
...Even Republicans admitted that these wouldn't do much to lower prices at the pumps...
...In the first quarter alone, the four biggest companies- ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP, and Chevron-Texaco-earned $97 billion in profits combined...
...It's amazing they're opening up our special places to drilling while not doing anything to improve fuel efficiency," says Presswood...
...This would put up for possible sale "approximately $1 trillion worth of electric generation, transmission, and distribution assets," Public Citizen says...
...Similarly, the bill would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority to overrule local and state governments in deciding where to locate electrical transmission and distribution lines...
...He also promised that the government itself would provide risk insurance to the companies in case of construction delays beyond their control...
...Bush and Cheney and DeLay have a corporate allegiance, not an allegiance to the citizenry or democracy or the environment...
...What's more, the government still does not know how to dispose of the nuclear waste these plants produce...
...It radically limits the ability of states to have adequate jurisdiction over the permitting and siting" of liquefied natural gas facilities inside their own borders, Public Citizen warns...
...He called it "one of the safest, cleanest sources of power in the world...
...Nancy Pelosi "The huge, glaring omission from the House energy bill was that it did nothing to promote fuel efficiency in cars and other motor vehicles...
...We have the technology to make all cars go forty miles per gallon within ten years, saving more oil than the U.S...
...But he is spending just a little more than $1 billion over five years on hydrogen fuel, and less than $2 billion over ten years on wind and solar...
...Instead, the companies will self-report the amount of oil they are producing and then provide in-kind contributions to the government-a recipe for cheating...
...If we are ever to kick the addiction to the black liquid oil, we're going to have to raise the miles per gallon requirement...
...Most sweepingly, the bill would allow energy companies to skirt the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act in several instances, as Grist Magazine has pointed out...
...The House energy bill, which the Administration shepherded through on April 15, reveals the Bush approach in all its shabby details...
...That's a positive step...
...He starves research into safe and renewable alternative energies...
...The bill is severely skewed, with 95 percent of the tax incentives going to polluting industries and only 5 percent to renewable and clean technologies and energy efficiency," says Jim Presswood, an energy advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council...
...MTBE has contaminated the water systems in more than 1,800 communities in twenty-nine states, Representative Lois Capps, Democrat of California, told AP...
...In fact, so disdainful of conservation were the Republicans that they voted down an amendment to increase fuel-efficiency standards for cars and other vehicles...
...In keeping with his ideology, he railed against "regulatory uncertainty" and "bureaucratic obstacles" in the way of nuclear plant construction...
...He talked about "our dependence on foreign energy," but by not proposing ways to reduce demand significantly, he will ensure that the United States remains dependent on foreign suppliers...
...The way to protect consumers and reduce the threat to our economy is reduce our need for oil, period," said Daniel A. Lahsof, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council...
...Yet the House rewarded energy companies with at least $12 billion in tax breaks and subsidies...
...This is supply-side energy policy, and it works no better than supply-side economic policy...
...Guess which company stands to gain a tremendous amount from this...
...What the big rollers want is the New Deal structural regulations gone," says Tyson Slocum, the research director for Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program...
...Comment Energy Company Policy George Bush's idea of an energy policy is to dish out goodies to his buddies in the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear power industries, hold hands with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and send the U.S...
...Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen...
...David Hamilton, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program, agrees...
...The fundamental problem is this," he said...
...These new utility owners would be beyond the reach of state regulators, and Bush's commission is not likely to guard the consumer's interest...
...The answers to our energy problems are not obscure...
...But we're not getting the leadership we need to make it happen...
...He ordered the Department of Energy to propose ways to make it easier for nuclear power companies to get their licenses...
...Bush did wave at the need to "get on a path away from the fossil fuel economy...
...Those funds pale in comparison to the cash he is lavishing on oil, gas, coal, and nuclear...
...That landmark law "requires all major projects on federal land . . . to be reviewed for their potential environmental impact and mandates a comment period during which the public can voice related concerns," the publication explains...
...That's just what Detroit wants: It can now argue that its big, gas-guzzling cars are necessary because they're safer and they preserve jobs...
...He floated a cockamamie idea about having oil companies build new refineries on military bases...
...The House bill strips states of almost all of their rights to regulate this field...
...But he proposed little that would take us down that path...
...Our supply of energy is not growing fast enough to meet the demands of our growing economy...
...The bill would open up not just the Arctic refuge...
...But the House bill would allow some drilling and exploration on our public lands to proceed without environmental impact reviews or public comment periods...
...And on top of that, the government would give companies $2 billion to come up with alternatives to MTBE...
...Bush and Tom DeLay piled high the presents in the House bill...
...And he framed the issue primarily as one of supply...
...The bill would be "exempting from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act the underground injection of chemicals during oil and gas development," the NRDC notes...
...Safe and clean are not adjectives usually ascribed to nuclear power, since melt-downs can hardly be ruled out and the reactors remain prime terrorist targets...
...Bush said the "first essential step toward greater energy independence is to apply technology to increase domestic production from existing energy resources...
...Meanwhile, he despoils our pristine places and contaminates our air and water...
...Nowhere is this clearer than in the field of liquefied natural gas...
...It's "anti-consumer, anti-taxpayer, anti-environment...
...He slights conservation...
...We have the technology to reduce oil demand by 2.5 million barrels per day...
...But more than just slopping out the pork in a frenzy of crony capitalism, Bush and DeLay set about the task of dismantling the system of energy regulation that has been in place since the end of the Great Depression...
...It "allows energy companies to be reimbursed by taxpayers for part of the costs of complying with federal environmental laws," says Public Citizen...
...Except when he's at the United Nations, Bush refuses to deliver a speech in front of any but the most receptive audiences...
...It "reclassifies radioactive waste from a former uranium extraction plant in Fernald, Ohio, as 'byproduct material,' which would allow it to be disposed in a dump not equipped to properly contain the waste's radioactivity," according to Public Citizen...
...All we need now is leaders who will put people ahead of corporations...
...That adds insult to outrage," says Slocum...
...Halliburton, which has exclusive North American licensing rights to just such an alternative that Norway's Fortrum Oil has developed...
...He offered a tax incentive to those who buy hybrid vehicles, including those with diesel engines...
...On April 27, Bush himself made his energy pitch in a speech in front of businesspeople...
...It would also expand oil and gas development in New Mexico's Villa Vidal and Otero Mesa, as well as the Padre Island National Seashore, the NRDC says...
...The House bill does just that...
...That means "if a utility proposes an unsafe plant design and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission delays its approval, the utility would be compensated with public money," according to the Natural Resources Defense Council...
...Such a freewheeling auction could easily lead to a situation where ExxonMobil or Wall Street investment houses would gobble up the utility companies...
...The House energy bill is "clearly designed to help energy companies make more money, not help the American people save money...
...It caps the liability that the nuclear industry would face in case of a serious accident...
...Here are some of the hidden goodies: The House bill "allows corporations drilling for oil on public land to forgo paying cash royalties to taxpayers," Public Citizen notes in a detailed analysis...
...This "pollution solution," as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) puts it, "threatens public health and the environment...
...But Bush's speech shows that he is unbothered by these concerns, and he wants to get more nuclear power plants up and running...
...But those aren't the leaders we have today...
...He gave his formal blessing to several of the provisions of the House bill, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, boosting nuclear power, and curbing state regulation of liquefied natural gas...
Vol. 69 • June 2005 • No. 6
