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Bush State of Union Speech Underscores Need for California and Other States to Act on Global Warming and Clean Energy

By Bernadette Del Chiaro and
Jason Barbose
Environment California

In his State of the Union Address tonight, President Bush offered many promises and platitudes on clean energy and global warming, but paltry few policy solutions. The President failed to outline support for key policies that would actually put America on a path to solving global warming and forging a clean energy future.

In five specific areas, the President’s remarks fell short:

First, the President announced his support for renewable technologies. Unfortunately, this is in direct contradiction to his threats to veto legislation last year that would have established a national renewable electricity standard and extended crucial tax incentives for the renewable energy industry. These two policies are critical to insuring the long term growth of renewable energy in this country. In the short term, the President must work with Congress to extend the clean energy tax incentives that expire by the end of this year as soon as possible. He must also voice his support for a national renewable electricity standard.

Second, in a bit of deja vu, the President mentioned global warming in his address tonight but failed to endorse the key policies needed to actually solve the problem. Most notably, the President stopped short of calling for a mandatory U.S. cap on global warming pollution, even though such a cap is essential to achieving the pollution cuts scientists say are needed in order to protect future generations from the worst effects of global warming.

Third, the President highlighted the signing of legislation that will require cars to achieve 35 miles per gallon by 2020. He failed, however, to mention that on the very same day that he signed the energy bill into law, the U.S. EPA denied California and twelve other states the right to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles. This misguided decision by the Bush administration flies in the face of overwhelming public support for policy-makers to combat global warming and serves as a further illustration of President Bush’s refusal to take the actions necessary to protect our environment and public health and to fight global warming.

Fourth, the President encouraged the construction of new nuclear power plants. Yet nuclear energy is an expensive technology that does not offer a solution to global warming. Nuclear facilities will cost billions to construct and take decades to come on line, and then will have security and waste disposal problems. Serious action to combat global warming will mean investment in the cleanest, cheapest and quickest ways to reducing carbon emissions—renewables and energy efficiency.

Fifth, the President endorsed further investment in so-called “clean coal.” However, clean coal is a myth. Coal is an inherently dirty fuel that pollutes our air, our water, and our pristine places. If we are going to be serious about fighting global warming then we need to move away from dirty fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas and toward clean renewable sources. We should invest in truly clean technologies like wind, solar, biomass and geothermal and not continue to sink billions of dollars into dirty coal.

Bernadette Del Chiaro is Clean Energy Advocate and Jason Barbose is the Global Warming Advocate for Environment California, a statewide, citizen-based environmental advocacy organization. For the last 30 years, Environment California has combined independent research, practical ideas and tough-minded advocacy to overcome the opposition of powerful special interests and win real results for California's environment.

Posted on January 29, 2008

Comments

Nuclear power is expensive but much of the cost associated wtih new nuclear plant construction is tied to the legal costs and red tape involved in getting a new plant up and running. In European nations, such as France, nuclear power is cheap power. The only reason nuclear power is so expensive in the US is because of regulation and litigation.
Also, nuclear plants are not land intensive. A wind farm would occupy miles and miles of land to produce the same output as a nuclear facility.

Posted by: Jacob at January 29, 2008 07:18 AM

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