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http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-16-06.html
Energy Fight Heats Up in Washington
WASHINGTON, DC, May 16, 2001 (ENS) - Union leaders expressed cautious approval Monday for Bush administration plans to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, saying the proposal could generate thousands of new jobs. But Tuesday afternoon, House Democrats unveiled their own energy plan, focusing on energy efficiency instead of new production.
Vice President Richard Cheney met Monday with Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and 18 labor leaders in hopes of winning union support for the White House energy plan, to be released Thursday. They found a ready ally in Teamsters Union president James Hoffa, who said he agreed with President George W. Bush's emphasis on developing domestic energy supplies and building more energy infrastructure, rather than energy conservation.
Vice President Richard Cheney has led a White House task force on energy that will announce its findings Thursday (Photo courtesy The White House)
"We like a lot of things" about the White House energy plan, said Hoffa. "We do believe we need more nuclear plants. We do believe we need more refining capacity; we haven't been building refineries."
"The amount of people involved would be in the literally hundreds of thousands," Hoffa said. "I think it's important to get people back to work, and I think this is going to be a very important thing to our nation to do this."
Regarding Bush's controversial proposal to drill in part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Hoffa said the nation's growing population will need the oil and natural gas believed to be stored beneath the pristine refuge.
"We need the gasoline, we need the fuel from Alaska," Hoffa told reporters after the meeting. "It's a large pool of oil up there, and I think thatīll be helpful to solving the problem."
Teamsters union president James Hoffa said he supports much of the Bush energy plan (Photo International Brotherhood of Teamsters)
The Teamsters cited a study by Wharton Econometrics, an economics forecasting company, which projects that expanded oil and natural gas drilling would create 25,000 new jobs for transportation and pipelines workers, and an additional 700,000 jobs for workers across the nation.
More workers would be needed to build the 1,300 to 1,900 new power plants called for in the Bush plan.
Also speaking out in support of the Bush plan was Douglas McCarron, general president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. Both the Carpenters Union and the Teamsters supported President Bush's opponent, former Vice President Al Gore, in the presidential race.
The Democrats, who have traditionally enjoyed the political support of labor interests, released their own energy plan Tuesday, which contrasts starkly with the Bush plan. The 15 page plan is designed to counter the "misguided notion that America must sacrifice the environment in order to maximize energy production,"
"We believe that America's current and future energy needs can be met without compromising our nation's fundamental environmental values," says the plan released by House Democrats. "We believe that the federal government can lead by example and become more energy efficient, invest in innovative technologies, and assure that energy markets are fair and competitive."
House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt unveiled the Democrats' long term energy plan Tuesday (Photo Office of the House Leader)
"The differences between our principles and President Bush's could not be greater," said House Democrativ Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri. "The President has a highly flawed agenda focused more on the needs of the energy lobby than average consumers and small businesses."
The Democrats plan supports the development of domestic energy sources, but would emphasize alternative energy to a far greater extent than the Bush plan. The proposal also calls for increased conservation by government, businesses and private citizens.
Under the plan unveiled by Gephardt and Representative Martin Frost, a Texas Democrat, the government would offer tax credits of up to $4,000 for the purchase of energy efficient vehicles and homes. The plan would create more stringent fuel efficiency standards for light trucks and sport utility vehicles, a proposal long supported by conservation groups.
In direct opposition to the Bush plan, the Democrats called for price caps on electricity sold in Western states, particularly California, where the state government has approved rate increased of up to 80 percent.
"Democrats propose effective protections against price gouging, retroactive tax credits for better energy efficiency and assistance to lower income families and the elderly on fixed incomes to help meet and lower their energy costs," the plan states.
White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer criticized this portion of the Democrats' plan, saying the price controls, "ultimately create greater energy problems."
Fleischer also condemned the Democrats suggestion that the government release more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which President Bill Clinton tapped last summer in response to skyrocketing gasoline prices.
"If tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had worked, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now," Fleischer said.
Both Democrats and Republicans agree the nation will need to repair and expand its electricity transmission infrastructure (Photo courtesy National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
However, Fleischer noted that, "there are several interesting overlaps between the Democrat plan and the President's plan. And there are several areas in the Democrat plan that are worth noting and worth support," such as the plan's emphasis on promoting "efficiency, conservation and renewables," which Fleischer said will also be part of the Bush plan.
Continuing their emphasis on the past ties between the President, Vice President and the oil industry, Democrats suggested that Bush is putting industry interests before the interest of the nation.
"Look at the record. The Administration's Task Force has spent months operating behind closed doors and is reportedly made up of executives and campaign contributors from the energy industry," charged Gephardt. "The President has appointed a host of energy lobbyists to key posts, and they seem willing to put the national interest second."
"We call on the President to move away from the special interests and put the interests of the American people first," Gephardt concluded. "We call on him to reject the radical, production only approach and to embrace a balanced program that will increase production, protect the environment and invest in efficiency and new technologies."
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-18-02.html
BUSH MAKING ENEMIES WORLDWIDE - WHEN WILL HIS SIMPLENESS BE ENDED
Backlash Hits Bush Energy Policy
WASHINGTON, DC, May 18, 2001 (ENS) - Criticisms of the Bush administration's National Energy Policy unveiled Thursday are being expressed by a wide range of citizens groups and politicians from across the political spectrum and around the world. Objections to its reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear power rather than renewables and conservation dominate the comments.
"The Bush energy plan is an all-you-can-eat buffet for big oil, gas, mining, nuclear, and timber. Industry executives are salivating over this plan more than a Texan at a rib roast," said Brian Vincent, California organizer for the national conservation group American Lands.
President Bush's energy policy fails to meet the test of conservative leadership, REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection, said today.
"The plan doesn't go far enough to improve our energy efficiency," said REP America executive director Jim Scarantino. "It perpetuates our dangerous dependence on oil, a national security risk. The plan would pick the taxpayers' pockets to continue giving handouts to the coal and nuclear industries. It threatens America's natural heritage by throwing our wild lands wide open to drilling. And it does little to address global warming, irresponsibly dumping a costly burden on our descendants."
California Governor Gray Davis (Photo courtesy Office of the Governor)
California Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat whose state has been hit by high energy prices and repeated rolling blackouts, slammed President Bush's energy plan Thursday, saying the administration is "turning a blind eye to the bleeding and hemorrhaging that exists in this state."
While agreeing with Bush that America needs more supply, Davis faulted the President "for not providing California with any immediate relief."
"We are literally in a war with energy companies, many of which reside in Texas," Davis said. Texas is Bush's home state where he served as governor since 1996 during the time when deregulation of California's electricity industry forced California power suppliers to purchase electricity out of state.
Sensitive to the storm of complaints, President George W. Bush, out selling the plan to the American public, is stressing the parts of his energy plan that deal with conservation and renewables.
President George W. Bush (Photo courtesy the White House)
"It starts with encouraging and enhancing conservation efforts all around America," Bush told a crowd in Conestoga, Pennsylvania today. "We're going to have better cars, I'm convinced of it, that have better mileage, rely less upon hydrocarbons. We'll have better homes, many of which will be powered by solar energy. This future is fantastic for the country. And a lot of it is based upon good, sound conservation measures," the president said.
But Bush went on to extoll the virtues of nuclear power generation, and press his view that drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in other fragile ecosystems can be done with little environmental impact and must be done "not only for national security reasons, but for international reasons, as well."
Mark Van Putten, president of the National Wildlife Federation, America's largest environmental organization said, "The nation's need for a stable energy supply must not be satisfied at the expense of people, wildlife and wild places. We must not surrender our natural treasures to a short sighted drilling frenzy, as this plan threatens. The administration proposes to rush ahead with increased energy production, invading some of the nation's wildest and most sensitive public lands by side-stepping the very safeguards established to protect them."
The McGuire nuclear power plant near Charlotte, North Carolina, is owned and operated by Duke Power. (Photo courtesy Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
"The Bush-Cheney administration's promotion of nuclear energy is distressingly short-sighted and potentially dangerous," said Kyle Rabin, Nuclear Energy Policy Project Director for the Albany, New York based Environmental Advocates. "It's all about denial and fantasy: Denying the nuclear meltdowns and near disasters; fantasizing that Yucca Mountain will solve the country's radioactive waste problems. Nuclear power must be phased out."
The League of Conservation Voters, a national organization, rejected the Bush plan because it focuses on "dirty, unreliable and inefficient fossil fuels and other energy sources that threaten the health of our environment and the strength of our economy." Bush's proposal will "ensure high public health costs and energy demand well into the future, protecting the corporate bottom line of his big oil and coal allies at the expense of the public's interest in clean air, safe water, open spaces, and low electricity and gas prices," the voters' advocacy group said.
"Bush's dirty, unbalanced, irresponsible energy policy has placed the special oil and coal interests that funded his campaign over the public's interest in a clean, reliable, safe, and affordable energy supply," said Deb Callahan, League of Conservation Voters president.
Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk (Photo courtesy IISD In Europe, the backlash is equally strong. Speaking on Dutch television yesterday, Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, who is chairman of international talks on the Kyoto climate protocol, said the plan was a "disastrous development" which would "undoubtedly" lead to increased emissions of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas linked to global warming.
Today, a spokesman for European Union Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio said the newly announced policy "confirms the U.S. is not taking Kyoto into account" in its domestic policies. Notably lacking from the policy, the EU claims, are demand related measures such as improved energy efficiency or fiscal measures to reduce consumption.
In the European Parliament, Green Members yesterday launched a petition calling for a consumer boycott of U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil. The Green party is claiming that representatives from four of the assembly's five major parties have already backed its call and says it expects well over 100 of the parliament's 626 members to sign the petition.
Petroleum refinery in Commerce City, Colorado. (Photo by David Parsons courtesy National Renewable Energy Lab)
The MEPs' action follows launch of an NGO-backed boycott campaign against ExxonMobil in the UK May 8. The groups said yesterday that an independent opinion poll showed over half the UK's petrol buyers support the move.
Despite these criticisms, President Bush is pressing forward to implement his energy policy. In executive orders issued today, the President directed all federal agencies to "expedite" their review of permits or take other actions as necessary to accelerate the completion of energy related projects, "while maintaining safety, public health, and environmental protections."
Bush established an interagency task force to be chaired by the head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. It will monitor and assist the agencies in their efforts to expedite their review of permits or similar actions, as necessary, to accelerate the completion of energy related projects, increase energy production and conservation, and improve transmission of energy.
U.S. Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, DC (Photo courtesy U.S. DOE)
The task force will monitor and assist agencies in setting up mechanisms to coordinate federal, state, tribal, and local permitting in geographic areas "where increased permitting activity is expected." The task force will be housed at the Department of Energy for administrative purposes.
Another executive order Bush issued today requires that any federal agency proposing a major regulatory action that significantly affects energy must file a statement of energy impact if the decision will have an adverse affect on energy supply, distribution or use. The agency must describe what reasonable alternatives to its decision may exist.
"The statement of energy impact is not a red light, preventing any agency from taking any action," Bush explained. "It is a yellow light that says, pause and think before you make decisions that squeeze consumer's pocketbooks, that may cause energy shortages or that may make us more dependent on foreign energy."
 
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