Special Interest Energy Plan Celebrates Dubious Anniversary... (Cheney)

[PfcHammer]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usnw/20040517/pl_usnw/special_interest_energy_plan_celebrates_dubious_anniversary__says_friends_of_the_earth131_xml

Special Interest Energy Plan Celebrates Dubious Anniversary, Says
Friends of the Earth

Mon May 17,12:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today marks the third anniversary of the release of the Bush administration's National Energy Policy, a plan crafted behind closed doors by Vice President Cheney and a host of industry lobbyists. The Bush administration has spent the past three years attempting to push a version of this plan through Congress. Below is a statement from Sara Zdeb, legislative director for Friends of the Earth:

"America needs to reduce our dependence on oil and promote a clean, safe energy future. But three years after Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s secret energy task force released its recommendations, the Bush administration and Congress continue to push this backward-looking plan that would do nothing to improve our nation's energy security."

"The Bush administration's energy plan and its counterpart in Congress were both crafted behind closed doors with the input of powerful polluting industries. Not surprisingly, the plans would roll back the clock on decades of environmental protection while providing billions in special interest giveaways to these same companies."

"Remarkably, even the administration's own Energy Information Agency said that the current energy plan before Congress would do next to nothing to impact production, consumption, demand and energy prices. Instead, the plan would increase the risk of nuclear proliferation, weaken environmental safeguards like the Clean Air Act, threaten treasured public lands with oil and gas development and hand over billions to America's worst polluting industries."

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