Dark Bilious Vapors

The following statements were released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Marchant Wentworth, Washington representative for Clean Energy:

"The president's approach fails to address high gasoline prices and the crippling cost of natural gas. It relies heavily on the old polluting and unsafe technologies of the past such as coal and nuclear power. Natural gas prices have more than doubled in the last five years, placing a burden on farmers as well as industrial and residential energy consumers.

"President Bush should look beyond 19th century industries for answers and toward a truly innovative technology like renewable energy. The president should call on the Senate to lower natural gas prices by enacting a renewable electricity standard that requires utilities to produce 10 percent of their power from clean renewable sources such as wind, solar, and biomass. A renewable standard of 10 percent by 2020 will create more than 91,000 new jobs in manufacturing, construction, operation, maintenance, and other industries and save consumers over $28.1 billion on their energy bills. The standard will lower natural gas prices by reducing demand."

Statement by David Friedman, Research Director, Clean Vehicles Program:

"The president's support of consumer incentives for greener cars, trucks and fuels is welcome, but incentives alone will not solve our problems of rising oil dependency, soaring gas prices, global warming, and other types of air pollution. Further, the president suggests that we pollute consumer incentives by giving taxpayer dollars to diesel vehicles that can be four to ten times dirtier than hybrids on the road today, taking us a step backwards on childhood asthma and lung disease in our elderly.
"Instead, President Bush should provide additional measures to deal with the fact that last year we sent $250,000 dollars every minute to foreign countries to purchase petroleum products. This year, our spending on oil imports has nearly doubled.

"The fastest way to save consumers money, reduce our oil dependency, and cut greenhouse gas emissions is to increase the fuel economy of our cars and trucks. By using existing technology to increase fuel economy of new vehicles from 24 mpg to 40 mpg over the next 10 years the U.S. could save 2.3 million barrels per day in 2015, as much as we currently import from the politically unstable Persian Gulf. This could be done with vehicles of the same size, performance and even improved safety over what we have today. By 2015, putting technology to work will save consumers a net of $23 billion and produce more than 160,000 new American jobs."

Karen on 04.28.05 @ 04:01 PM CST