Management By Photo-Op: George Bush's Carney-Style Energy Policy
Why is our president playing a shell game with the nation's energy R&D budget?
by greenpowerZONE

Management By Photo-Op: George Bush's Carney-Style Energy Policy
Why is our president playing a shell game with the nation's energy R&D budget?

by Lee H. Goldberg

Trading in his flight suit for a lab coat last week, President Bush staged his latest photo-op at Novozymes North America, the North Carolina-based subsidiary of a Danish technology company involved in cellulosic ethanol development. This public relations exercise touting his newfound interest in renewable energy technologies reminds me of a carnival shell game. You remember how that works? All you have to do to win that big doll is to figure out which of the three shells the guy with the straw hat is hiding the pea under -- but somehow that pea is never where you think it is. Much as the carnival barker's clever légère de main keeps you from figuring out where the pea is, Mr. Bush is using photo-ops and misleading statements to hide the truth that the year's energy R&D budget is woefully inadequate, and heavily-biased towards dead-end technologies that will ultimately hurt America's environment and its ability to compete in the global economy.

Mr. Bush's earnest-sounding remarks about the need for clean, home-grown fuels and the $50 million for bio-energy research plus another $15 million for biomass technology development in his proposed federal budget could easily be mistaken for genuine concern about America's energy future. That is, you could believe it until you look further down the budget line items and find the $863 million he's proposing for programs related to fossil fuels, a 33% increase over his request for 2006. And like any good shell game, the White House's proposal for $2 billion in loan guarantees to help kick-start the nascent cellulosic ethanol manufacturing industry looks good at first glance, until you realize that it is a small fraction of the $9 billion in loans he wants to guarantee for a new generation of nuclear power plants. And then there's the $875 million he's proposing for nuclear energy research and development (up 38% from last year).

Now I think that the nuclear power industry can play an important part in a sustainable energy economy, but it is already an established, profitable sector of our economy and $9 billion in cheap loans and close to another $1 billion in outright subsidies for stuff they can afford to do themselves is more like corporate welfare than an investment in our future. The already-profitable coal industry is also a beneficiary of the White House's largess, with the bulk of the fossil fuel R&D (more than $500 million) going to underwrite development of various forms of so-called clean-coal technology. This includes a large hand-out to support research on so-called alternative fuels such as liquefied coal, which could produce even more heat-trapping gases than gasoline.

The modest budget increases for green energy and energy conservation R&D Mr. Bush proposes are little more than window dressing to pretty-up a policy that continues to underwrite energy sources that are bad for our environment, our geo-political situation, and our economy. The paltry sums he's trying to add back barely begin to restore funding back to pre-2002 levels. In fact, the 2006 and 2007 budget cuts to renewable energy development were so severe that they nearly interfered with an earlier photo-op at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), the nation's foremost renewable energy research facility. That was back in 2006 when the White House had to scramble to help find the $5 million it had helped cut out of the NREL budget so they could re-hire the 32 researchers that had been laid off two weeks before the president's scheduled visit.

Like the photo-ops he posed for in New Orleans, on the deck of an aircraft carrier, and elsewhere, the story Mr. Bush is telling about his vision for America's future energy policy runs exactly opposite of what's really going on. His inaction stands in sharp contrast to the enormous investments in renewable energy R&D and production capacity being made in Europe, Japan, and other parts of Asia, which will help boost their economies and reduce their dependence on increasingly scarce fossil fuels.

We still stand a chance at participating in, or even leading, the world's shift to a sustainable energy economy, but time is running out. Another year or two of pandering to Big Carbon interests instead of our nation's strategic needs could put us on a nearly irrevocable path towards economic irrelevancy.

When will our government stop leading by photo-op and start helping us build a future we can be proud to hand over to our grandkids?

Comments? Questions? Suggestions for a saner energy policy? Write me at: lgoldberg@green-electronics.com