Posted by
Michael on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 1:53:20 PM
What does Bush have in store for us this
State of the Union?President Bush's staff
promises that his pronouncements tonight on energy and climate will
"knock your socks off" and score headlines "above the fold." Listen for soaring new goals for biofuels such as ethanol, a plea
for more presidential power to boost vehicle fuel economy and perhaps a
more concrete acknowledgment of global warming.
Cue polite applause but not exactly shock and awe.
"This might be a Nixon-going-to-China story, but it's hard to
imagine it," said Dan Sperling, director of the University of
California Institute for Transportation Studies at Davis.
Lawmakers in Congress are racing ahead of the president and
his State of the Union, offering 35-mph vehicles and multiple
"cap-and-trade" bills to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.
So, will W's legacy be ratifying the Kyoto Protocol in the final years of his presidency? I wouldn't go as far to say that, and that would in my opinion be a huge waste of time. Energy independence and environmental protection are best tackled by actually doing something, not signing a document that has had lukewarm results in the countries it has been enacted in.
I personally back the strategy of
providing tax breaks to those that invest in alternative energy.
With the Democrats in control of Congress, though, it's
inevitable that Kyoto will come up again. Given that, this is as good a time as any to post Glenn Beck's excellent satire: