Energy talk cheaper than action

Remember the first rule of citizenship: Pay attention to what a political leader does, not what he or she says. President Bush's energy strategy provides a good test for the discerning citizen.
By what he says, Bush has found religion on energy security. He took another road trip this week to say so, with pit stops in Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado to tout next-generation hybrid car batteries, hydrogen fuel cells and research for renewable fuels. He dispatched a half dozen Cabinet members elsewhere to deliver the administration's recently altered energy messages.
By what the president does with his budget priorities list, however, it is clear that there's more mouth than money behind his energy transformation ideas. And there is less money for near-term conservation, which the administration praised to the heavens in the months just after post-Katrina gasoline and natural gas price explosions.
Remember the 2005 energy bill that finally passed last summer because folks who vote were in their own energy budget crunches? In that law, Congress authorized $1.8 billion for major energy efficiency programs. Bush's budget proposal for next year asks for $638 million in spending for these programs. In most cases, the Bush budget asks for less spending than this year. These trims, dear utility bill payer, include money to help low-income families weatherize homes and for the Energy Star efficient appliance program.
In the say-do frame, it is hard to plumb why Bush would choose the National Renewable Fuels Laboratory in Golden, Colo., for one of his energy tour stops. Yes, the president's recent interest in renewables and the longer-term focus of his programs make the NREL a good backdrop. But it was inevitable that Bush's visit would highlight cuts in the capacity of this outfit. The day before Bush visited, the administration magically found $5 million for the lab so 32 workers who had recently lost their jobs because of cutbacks could come back to work.
"I have spent a lot of time worrying about the national security implications of being addicted to oil," Bush said at the lab. This is a message-reinforcement line for the rhetorical flourish in the State of the Union message. The president said in that talk that he wants to cut Mideast oil imports to the United States 75 percent by 2025. The next day, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman adjusted the stated goal, saying that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports that equals most of what the United States expects to get from Mideast sources in 2025. In other words, the sound bite is a 75 percent cut from Mideast suppliers, but reality is less ambitious and strategic. Still, the president sounded good in the State of the Union, didn't he?
Senate Democrats this week called Bodman on the carpet, asking for specifics on how the administration intends to get the reduction in Mideast oil reliance. It must be noted that the lack of a reasonable energy security plan is a long-term bipartisan failure in Washington. The 2005 Energy Policy Act is an expensive patchwork of poison politics, regionalism and special-interest hardball. In short, the United States is in a jam on energy.
It is also in a jam on government resources. Transformative enterprises — like energy security — aren't affordable from the public purse on a scale that can get a big job done.
The Bush budget cheaps out because there really isn't money unless the government decides to pile more debt on an already dangerous pile of borrowing. The fiscal choices in Washington have included fighting wars, cutting taxes, adding a huge new Medicare drug entitlement and an array of other things that have taken the government surpluses Bush inherited when he came to office into deep deficits. In this climate, the primary target for holding down the growth of deficits is domestic discretionary spending. That would be items like low-income home weatherization and energy technology research and development.
Before grand talk about energy security should have come the grand acknowledgment that the American government is running on empty. The government can't swipe its credit card at the pump no matter how good it sounds for the president to tout energy security.
Holste is associate editor of the editorial page. Write her at gholste@pioneerpress.com or at the Pioneer Press, 345 Cedar St., St. Paul, MN 55101.
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