Baby Steps?
January 24th, 2007 by Carbon CoalitionAs expected in last night’s State of the Union Address, President Bush brought forth an energy proposal calling for a 20% reduction of gasoline over the next 10 years. It only took him a year to elaborate on his “Americans are addicted to oil” statement from last years speech, leaving many to wonder what his pace will be in adressing “the serious challenge of global climate change” (to use his words).
In order to achieve this goal, the President plans to set a mandatory requirement that 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels are manufactured each year by 2017. He also would like to see fuel-efficiency standards of cars and trucks increased by 4% a year, amounting to about 1 mile per gallon, beginning in 2010 for cars and 2012 for trucks. But is this enough?
Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says “if this was a real effort to solve the climate problem, it would include large stationary sources and utilities” which contribute 40% of US greenhouse gas emissions. Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Truts, explains “the big numbers may sound impressive, but this is nothing more than stay-the-course on global warming.” (Read the entire article from the New York Times here.)
The President, who is currently at his lowest in opinion rating polls, didn’t quite hit the mark many were hoping for in regards to global warming. Maybe next year?
