Down to Earth Blog

Refuses Emissions Targets, Puts Off Rules for Cars:  It's been a busy week for the Bush administration in terms of blocking progress on energy issues, global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.

On Monday, Bush signed an executive order asking federal agencies to draw up rules to "cut gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles", as reported by the Associated Press. He says, however, the rules aren't due to be in place until late 2008 -- just about the end of his term.

"When it comes to energy and the environment, the American people expect common sense and they expect action," the president said.

Later in the week, Reuters reported that Bush's chief climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, continued to reject emission targets or cap and trade schemes at a meeting in Germany -- despite prodding from Great Britain and Germany.

Watson said targets and timetables are not important and that the U.S. government does not want to jeopardize economic growth. He believes cap and trade would drive up the price of electricity. (Of course if that happened, maybe people would use less electricity -- hmmm.)

Cap and trade has worked before (the EPA has used it to regulate and decrease sulfur dioxide emissions -- the causes of acid rain) and some U.S. businesses are asking for such a system -- see my post about ConocoPhillips joining the U.S. Climate Action Partnership back in April. Other companies that favor a mandatory, market-driven approach to reduce greenhouse gases include General Electric, General Motors, Shell, BP and PepsiCo.

The Bush folks, however, seem to favor inaction over action -- despite what the president says. I guess that will be part of Bush's legacy.

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• #1 Comment from bobmueller1 
  5/18/07 6:59 PM | Permalink

  Don't worry everything will be solved in the very near future. I have proof on how to lower emissions and very soon I will have Scientific data to back it up.