Fuel fakery

If I read President Bush correctly, we’re all supposed to pull together and make up for a fuel shortage, which no one could have seen coming because it was the result of a natural disaster. Sorry, but even though it would be great if people avoided unnecessary trips in their gas guzzlers, I have a different spin on events.

This is the same administration that consistently has opposed increases in federal fuel-economy standards that could have weaned us from foreign oil. This is the same administration whose vice president, Dick Cheney, conducted closed-door energy policy meetings that endorsed oil company giveaways and famously proclaimed, "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

And this is the same administration that has routinely cut funding for energy conservation.

President Bush is now echoing Jimmy Carter who, in a groundbreaking (and election-losing) 1977 speech called the U.S. "the most wasteful nation on earth." Carter merely said what the greens have continued to say in the intervening 28 years: "We waste more energy than we import. We use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden … We can drift along for a few more years. Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person — the driver — while our public transportation system continues to decline."

We didn’t listen and we drifted. While Carter was donning his sweater and trying to persuade Americans to conserve, Bush was failing in the oil business and had to have his Arbusto ("shrub" in Spanish) company bailed out by James Bath, the bin Laden family’s representative in the U.S. Since then, he’s been convinced the answer to energy problems is drilling and more drilling.

But here’s the 2005 Bush, who (after trying time and time again to kill Amtrak) suddenly cares about conservation and public transportation: "We can encourage employees to car pool or use mass transit, and we can shift peak electricity use to off-peak hours," Bush said. "There’s ways (sic) for the federal government to lead when it comes to conservation." There are, but he’s ignored them for five years.

Two thirds of Americans say in recent polls high gas prices are causing them financial hardship and they have actually cut back on driving a little since Hurricane Katrina. Bush wants to ease our pain by drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), dipping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and eliminating environmental controls on refining gasoline — measures that won’t help our near- or long-term security. ANWR drilling, for example, won’t yield any significant oil for 20 years. Are there Americans out there who still believe Bush when it comes to energy policy?

Cadillac country

Bob Dylan once noted the Cadillac is "a good car to drive after a war." The irony of 2005 is we’re in a war — and an energy crisis to boot — and we’re still driving Caddys. I felt like some contemporary version of Louis XIV piloting my 2005 Cadillac XLR. Here’s a $76,650 two-seater whose V-8 burns Saudi Arabia’s finest at a rate of 17 mpg around town. The problem is, we’ve come to view cars like this as part of our American entitlement. Will we be willing to leave them in the garage while we ride the train?