Reply #94: Well when you let them draft their OWN laws, it happens.

[Tigress DEM]

This all goes back to Dick Cheney in "secret meetings" about Energy policy that are STILL kept out of public domain. WE don't know for sure what was said, but members of Enron and Oil industry were represented, the people were not.

In addition, the Energy bill gives only a few thousand credit if you buy an energy efficient hybrid (because at the time that would have given Toyota's Prius an unfair advantage over the SUV's). BUT it gives up to 100,000 for buying a SUV or Hummer because THAT makes Bushie Boy's people happy.

It didn't make my Repub here happy when I pointed it out.. he had voted for the bill after that had been removed, but by the time it got all the way through it had been put back in. It was a dark and Cheney time when bills would be "polished up" in secret meetings where DEMs and non-cooperative repubs could not go, were not invited and that were scheduled in the middle of the night away from prying eyes.

AND none of the things you THINK would have been PRIME TIME in an Energy Bill were given ANY real money. Wind Energy... Free once you put up the windmills. Solar energy - underfunded. Ethanol - from corn, renewable, for God's sake it could save family farming if we switched to corn based fuel. Then you get oil company tax rebates and the money is all earmarked. So it looks like the people who got the Veep's ear, got the money and made sure any competition was left in the dust.

Oh, and the oil companies are making so much money Bush doesn't think they should have to pay for land they've leased from the US Taxpayers. So to make up the difference he's selling off National Forest land.