Climate change and big oil

In the "State of the Union" address the other night, President Bush mentioned a problem that he's never before discussed in a SOTU speech: global climate change.

America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. And these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.

This was mentioned, primarily, in the context of a new energy plan:

Tonight, I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great goal. Let us build on the work we've done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years. (Applause.) When we do that we will have cut our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East.

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.) At the same time, we need to reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars the way we did for light trucks -- and conserve up to 8.5 billion more gallons of gasoline by 2017.

In the very next sentences, he also discussed stepping up domestic oil supplies -- code, perhaps, for drilling in Alaska -- that may not be especially popular in a Democratically-controlled Congress that is already trying to end a tax break for big oil companies.



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Filed as: climate change