Fact sheet on health care proposals
Empty-statement-of-the-day:
The United Nations has imposed sanctions on Iran, and made it clear that the world will not allow the regime in Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons.
How’s that for diffuse accountability? If the mullahs get the bomb, the world has failed. Maybe he figured he goofed last September when he allowed the goalposts to temporarily stop moving:
President Bush said Tuesday a nuclear-armed Iran would blackmail the free world and raise a mortal threat to the American people.
“I am not going to allow this to happen,” Bush said in a speech on terrorism. “And no future American president can allow it, either.”
PREVIOUS POST (with links) on the president’s posturing regarding energy: The GOP Gets Even Greener
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UPDATE:
Here’s something from a Pete Du Pont column about spending:
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, recently introduced a bill to expand the farm subsidy program by mandating that vehicles use 60 billion gallons of ethanol annually by 2030, instead of the current five billion. The current subsidy for farmers producing ethanol is 51 cents a gallon, so that’s another $30 billion in farm subsidies to be paid for by tax increases or spending cuts.
Just in time for the president to call for:
To reach this goal, we must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 — and that is nearly five times the current target. (Applause.)
Sen. Harkin is a Democrat. So is George Bush.
Over at Human Events, Myron Ebell is not amused:
The White House’s energy goals focus on reducing gasoline consumption by 20% in the next 10 years, largely through mandating wider use of more expensive alternative fuels and increasing the severity of fuel economy standards that have been shown to compromise vehicle safety.
Bush’s proposals amount to a giant step back from the goal of a rational energy policy. Instead of increasing affordable and reliable energy supplies, tonight’s plan would raise gas prices on consumers while making the U.S. less economically competitive as transportation costs rise. Raising energy prices significantly would make Americans less, not more, secure.
The real beneficiaries of raising the mandatory use of alternative fuels from 7.5 to 35 billion gallons per year would be special interests because consumers would be required to buy their higher-priced fuels, which by the way already receive outlandish taxpayer subsidies. Bush is proposing a huge expansion of the corporate welfare state.
Max Schulz chips in:
It is highly doubtful that we can produce sufficient quantities of ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, and other fuels to displace a huge share of our gasoline consumption in ways that don’t raise prices for consumers at the pump or, for that matter, at the grocery store.
Furthermore, an expanded ethanol mandate will work at cross purposes with increased mileage standards. A gallon of ethanol offers about one-third less fuel economy than a gallon of gasoline. That means you need major efficiency gains just to stay even.
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Greater reliance on ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, and such would also require that more land and more marginal land go under the plow. This would mean more habitat lost for wildlife. More of our increasingly limited water supply gone for agriculture. More ag chemicals in the soil, air and water. And a host of other unintended consequences.