Bush’s shameless bamboozle
As he peppers speeches with cries of "energy
crisis," President Bush behaves like Chicken Little, the comic
barnyard creature who, after being hit by a rock, scurried around
hysterically screaming, "The sky is falling!"
But unlike the sappy Chicken Little, Bush knows what he’s
doing.
The president is shamelessly bamboozling Americans into
believing environmental protections should be ditched to allow drilling
pell mell for oil and gas wherever it’s found, while using the air as a
dumping ground for industrial filth.
The cackles you hear come from loot-and-pollute schemers
who paid handsomely with campaign contributions to elect President Bush to
turn back the environmental clock.
Take California’s purported electricity shortfall.
The problem is generation output, not lack of fuel. Dear
to the heart of Republican conservatives, California deregulated its
electric utilities, whose executives thereupon failed to keep up with
soaring consumer demand, but also seem to be creating shortfalls with
suspect plant closings.
Consider this statistic: As of noon, last Saturday, March
31, the California Independent System Operator – manager of California’s
electricity grid – reported on its web site (www.caiso.com)
that 119 of the state’s generators were down or partially down and not
producing, which deprived consumers of 13,991 megawatts of power
Of the total lost power, 56 percent was due to
"forced" shutdown of plants, 45 percent due to
"planned" shutdowns.
On the previous day, shutdowns took 12,250 megawatts off
line. On Thursday, 13,084 megawatts, and 11,959 on Wednesday. And on and
on.
So, no fuel shortage there, as Bush would have us believe.
After holding California hostage with shortages, the
utility bosses finally wangled a huge rate increase, ostensibly for new
plants.
For those who doubt Bush’s motives in manipulating the
electricity shortfall into an "energy crisis," consider his
broken promise to enforce carbon dioxide controls, a vow that
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Whitman thought
was so golden she assured doubters that Bush’s word was good.
How wrong ¾ and humiliated! ¾ she was when Bush
abandoned his promise just days later.
If doubters still are unmoved, his declaration that he won’t
go along with the Kyoto Treaty for a global air cleanup should be
persuasive.
The Kyoto pact is flawed, Bush says lamely. But his tax
cut plan is painfully flawed, too, as are his faith-based welfare and
missile defense proposals. But he pursues them with clenched-teeth
vengeance.
The president finally `fessed up, unwittingly: he told
reporters he wouldn’t allow the economy to be hurt by air quality rules.
Translation: He won’t saddle cronies in oil and gas
industries with regulations that curtail their willy-nilly dumping of
toxics into the air and ground.
After all, a few million dollars saved here and there on
environmental controls and paperwork means bonuses for CEOs, but misery
for Planet Earth and its creatures.
