Bush Energy "Plan" Draws Skepticism - a.k.a. "When AEI Attacks!"

[hatrack]

Commentators said there was little new to the initiatives and noted that Bush had not outlined any ways to reduce consumption in the world's biggest energy-consuming nation, such as tougher emissions controls on cars.

EDIT

"It was hardly the bold signal we've been waiting for through years of global warming and deadly struggles in the Middle East, where everything takes place in the context of what Mr. Bush rightly called our 'addiction' to imported oil," the New York Times said in an editorial. "The president has never been serious about energy independence. Like so many of our leaders, he is content to acknowledge the problem and then offer up answers that do little to disturb the status quo," it said.

Bush called for ethanol to be made a commercially viable fuel for vehicles within six years. US production of the chemical compound nearly doubled between 1997 and 2004 to reach 3.4 billion gallons (12.9 billion litres). But compared to the 140 billion gallons of gasoline (petrol) used each year by Americans, ethanol represents barely 2.5 percent of auto fuel. "Well I guess if Brazil can do it with ethanol, why can't we?" Alaron Trading energy analyst Phil Flynn wrote in a sarcastic appraisal of Bush's proposals. "The president says he will also fund research in cutting-edge methods of making ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips or switch grass. He left out cattle manure."

EDIT

The Republican president's proposals risk upsetting his own political base, traditionally opposed to public subsidies. "If those technologies have economic merit, no subsidy is necessary. If they don't, then no subsidy will provide it," said Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Myron Ebell, director of energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said: "The president's dangerous rhetoric that we are addicted to oil is an indication that the administration is addicted to confused thinking about energy policies."

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Scepticism_Over_Bushs_Call_For_Dramatic_Cut_In_Mideast_Oil_Imports.html

[phantom power]

1. They're cute when they eat their young.

[northofdenali]

2. Great minds & all that.

All the neocons here just KNOW that "reducing independence on foreign oil" means opening ANWR. One says shrubbie will use "national security" as an excuse.

I don't doubt it.

[Strelnikov_]

3. By The Time The Market Signals A Problem, Through Price Spikes

it is too late.

All these Randian types are going to find out how well their economic model works for energy infrastructure planning. There is just a bit of difference between the power grid, liquid fuels and toilet paper at the big box store as it relates to a market economy.

Maybe they are hoping Ayn will come down and Rapture them all up to the objectivist paradise.

[phantom power]

4. I think today's neo-cons would have made Ayn Rand vomit.

Some of them may justify their lunacy by appealing to her pure free-market advocacy, but she'd probably spit in their face. She was a believer in rational self-interest. The neocons just believe in self-interest, and dress it up as "rational"

Of course, the existence of neocons is one example of where she went wrong. Her faith in the inherent rationality of humans was tragically overblown.

But she'd still spit in their face. She'd probably kick Greenspan in the nuts, just for ever attending her lectures.

[Kolesar]

5. Vomiting, spitting in the face, kicking of the nuts

You need to calm down. I know--because I need to calm down.

[phantom power]

6. I'd switch to decaf, but... damn. I already have!