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Posted on 01/23/2007 10:49:08 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - In his first State of the Union address to a Democratic-controlled Congress, President Bush is calling for Americans to slash gasoline consumption by up to 20 percent by 2017.
Bush envisions the goal being achieved primarily through a sharp escalation in the amount of ethanol and other alternative fuels that the federal government mandates must be produced.
The rest of the fuel use reduction is to come from raising fuel economy standards for passenger cars, Joel Kaplan, White House deputy chief of staff, told reporters in a briefing before Bush's Tuesday night speech to a joint session of Congress.
I'll update this one as it grows. :-)
So let's increase the ethanol boondoggle, and
The rest of the fuel use reduction is to come from raising fuel economy standards for passenger cars, Joel Kaplan, White House deputy chief of staff, told reporters in a briefing before Bush's Tuesday night speech to a joint session of Congress.
Force Americans to drive smaller and more dangerous cars.
Reduce gasoline consumption? No problem, pass some reasonable regulations on diesel.
Anything that we can do as a country to deny Muslim countries sources of revenue is a good thing. How we do it is another.
Meanwhile the rich will continue to drive whatever they want. Its us little people that need to behave.
G.W.'s advice will be ........ don't stand too near Mrs. Clinton.
For anyone's reference, US gasoline consumption from 1945
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mgfupus1m.htm
Typical STOU address with a laundry list of things that will never be done.
I simply do not understand the desire to further strip the soil of production value by using Ethanol. Somehow it seems like a misuse of the agricultural soil to "grow" gasoline. I'm sure ADM and associates like the the cost of corn going through the roof, but that has economic consequences in addition to the certain moral ones of harvesting corn for gasoline.
The Libs are already warming-up their private jets to use to cross the country denouncing Bush's plan...
I pledge to cut back my gasoline consumption by 100% by 2017.
Biodiesel, butanol, ethanol, coal-diesel, hybrids, fuel cells etc. We can do it now! Just get GM and the others to produce the engines!.......
Bush is proposing to change to how the tax code treats health insurance, by counting employer contributions toward health insurance as taxable income while establishing a standard deduction for anyone with insurance.
Can I get a wakeup call when this nightmare is over?
Either you drive a diesel or you're 95 years old.........
The more I hear what's going to be said tonight, the stronger the likelihood that I'll watch the latest re-runs of "Rome" on HBO.
About the only thing that can bring me out of my current funk is for VP Cheney to announce that he'll run for President in 2008.
Getting laid wouldn't hurt, either.
Someone here on FR also mentioned the accelerated depletion of the Ogalala Resevoir due to the corn/ethanol crop.
What is George doing stealing Jimmy Carter's material?
20% in ten years. Sure.
""So let's increase the ethanol boondoggle, and""
Ethanol is a boondoggle, but as far as boondoggles go, cutting only "20%" and as late as "2017" is not very imaginative by Bush Admin.
Maybe they are still beholden to the oil boys.
Forget the "maybe."
I'm with you... this is quite possibly the dumbest idea in the past few decades....
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Update,,
WASHINGTON - In his first State of the Union address to a Democratic-controlled Congress, President Bush will urge that gasoline consumption be slashed by 20 percent, the White House said, and try to dissuade lawmakers ready to resist his Iraq war build up.
In Tuesday night's address before a joint session of Congress, Bush was not expected to rehash the speech he gave less than two weeks ago laying out his revamped war plan. Instead, he was expected in the 9 p.m. EST speech to broadly defend his argument that success in Iraq is indispensable to making Americans safer in the era of terrorism.
Bush was not going to ignore the range of Iraq resolutions now pending on Capitol Hill that express everything from doubt to outright opposition. He planned, indeed, to make it clear how he thought they should vote when the various anti-war resolutions come to the House and Senate floors, said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging the president.
Don't strain yourself trying to make sense of it. It is senseless.
It's sad but reruns of "I love Lucy" on TV Land will prolly get higher ratings.
He's a lame duck with a 35% approval rating.
Bush is trying to build a legacy, even if it means acting even more like a Democrat.
The President is Drinking Al Gore's Kool-Aid.
Update for article from the San Diego U-T
yahoo is just dribbling updates out, this looks like the whole enchilada.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20070123-1048-stateofunion.html
WASHINGTON – In his first State of the Union address to a Democratic-controlled Congress, President Bush is calling for Americans to slash gasoline consumption by up to 20 percent by 2017.
Bush envisions the goal being achieved primarily through a sharp escalation in the amount of ethanol and other alternative fuels that the federal government mandates must be produced. The rest would come from raising fuel economy standards for passenger cars, Joel Kaplan, White House deputy chief of staff, said in advance of Bush's Tuesday night speech to a joint session of Congress.
The president is proposing to set the amount of ethanol and other alternative fuels to be blended into the fuel supply at 35 billion gallons by 2017, up from 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. He also wants to expand the standard to include not just ethanol but a wide range of oil alternatives, such as biodiesel, methanol, butanol and hydrogen, Kaplan said.
Though some argue that such a drastic increase is unrealistic, Kaplan said the White House is banking on the new mandate – which would need approval from Congress – spurring investments in the industry and giving technological research a boost.
The other piece of Bush's energy proposal is something he has unsuccessfully asked Congress for in the past – the ability to rewrite mileage rules for new car fleets. The White House calls it a safe way to improve car mileage, but some critics suggest that it could instead spur automakers to produce more gas guzzlers.
The Transportation Department already has revamped its the rules for pickups, sport utility vehicles and minivans, setting a sliding mileage scale that is based on a vehicle's size. The overall standard was increased slightly; smaller vehicles now must meet higher mileage requirements than do larger ones. The biggest SUVs were exempted until 2011.
Bush wants the same ability to reform mileage rules for passenger cars, which today must meet a fleet average of 27.5 miles per gallon, a standard unchanged in two decades. He would include a system of trading or “banking” credits to meet new standards, Kaplan said.
In the 9 p.m. EST speech, the president goes before lawmakers with a much-abbreviated topic list, hoping to capture the public's attention at a time when 2008 presidential contenders and Capitol Hill's new Democratic leaders present fierce competition. So he is dangling new and recycled ideas before lawmakers in four key areas – energy, education, immigration and health care.
With debate over the Iraq war sending Republicans scurrying away from the president and his job approval rating hovering in the mid-30 percent range, Bush's overall agenda was twofold: present himself as a leader with a sincere desire to work across party lines and pressure on Democratic leaders to either go along or offer alternatives.
The White House has promised the president will be bold. But spiraling war expenses and huge federal deficits preclude anything too costly.
But the cold reception that Bush's ideas on health care received on Capitol Hill in the days ahead of the speech offered a striking reminder of the difficulty he faces in the new climate.
The president is proposing to change to how the tax code treats health insurance, by counting employer contributions toward health insurance as taxable income while establishing a standard deduction for anyone with insurance. The White House says it would introduce increased market forces to the health care industry and make coverage more affordable for the uninsured. Aides estimated the plan would represent a tax increase for only about 20 percent of employer-covered workers.
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., chairman of a key health subcommittee in the House, said he would not even consider holding hearings on the proposal. He dismissed it as a dead-on-arrival attempt to encourage employers to stop offering health insurance.
“You can assume a lot of people are going to do the old 'it's dead on arrival,' “ White House press secretary Tony Snow said. “It's not. This is a proposal that's going to make health care cheaper for 100 million Americans or more.”
On Iraq, Bush was not expected to rehash the speech he gave less than two weeks ago laying out his revamped war plan, the centerpiece of which is a 21,500-troop increase in the U.S. military presence. Instead, he was to broadly defend his stand that Iraq is part of a war on terror that will make Americans safer.
Democrats scheduled freshman Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. a Vietnam war veteran who opposed Bush's invasion of Iraq, to deliver their party's televised response to the president.
“They don't have a plan,” Webb said in a preview of his remarks. “What they have put on the table is more a tactical adjustment.”
On Capitol Hill, the pushback from congressional Republicans to the troop increase grew – even on the speech drew near.
Three GOP senators and one moderate Democrat unveiled nonbinding legislation expressing disagreement with the plan and urging Bush to consider “all options and alternatives.”
“We've had four other surges since we first went into Iraq,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of the sponsors. “None of them produced a long-lasting change in the situation on the ground.”
In the House, members of the GOP leadership drafted a series of what they called “strategic benchmarks” and said the White House should submit monthly reports to Congress measuring the Iraqi government's progress in meeting them.
Meanwhile, majority Democrats intend to hold votes within days in the House and Senate on tougher bills declaring that the troop increase is “not in the national interest.”
In other areas the president is expected to address:
Health care. Bush will propose a tax deduction of $7,500 for individuals and $15,000 for families regardless of whether they buy their own health insurance or receive medical coverage at work. He also would subject employer-sponsored health care benefits to taxation, meaning those with policies worth more than the deduction would see a tax hike. But those who get policies at work worth less than the deduction, the preponderance of workers with employer-provided insurance, would get a tax break. Another proposal would give some federal money now going to hospitals and other facilities to states for programs to reduce the number of uninsured.
Education. Bush will push for Congress to renew his education accountability law, No Child Left Behind, which expires this year.
Immigration. Bush will again push for comprehensive reform that goes beyond tougher border security.
Associated Press writers Ben Feller, Kevin Freking and David Espo contributed to this report.
1) Why doesn't China cut back!
2) We spent trillions in Iraq, how about some payback.
3) Ethanol is good if you want your meat to cost a fortune.
4) Something tell me this could be about petro dollars.
5) Anyway you cut it their's going to be a GPS satellite tracking mileage tax on your no pump gasoline vehicle.
6) Global Warming will be good for the food supply because you can grow food in melted permafrost areas.
Their must be some up side to global warming.
Let is melt.
One more thought. The water level at my friends house has been the same for the past 20 years. When these homes start to show an increase in water level I'll start to be believe...
that global warming is for real and not a political tool to control people.
Until then I think Al Gore and Jay Rockefeller are worried about their oil stock dividends lasting more than one generation.
Remove 20 million illegal aliens there, problem solved!
LOL! Great Call!
Yes, by removing 20 million illegal aliens you could get your 20% slash gasoline consumption by 2008.
Kill to birds with laws already on the books.
This just in: Bush will call for American Shock Brigades to increase steel output by 50 percent in the next Five Year Plan.
That's a good thing to ask Greenpeace, Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club, the Democrats, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Norm Coleman, etc., etc.
The President disgusts me more and more everytime he opens his mouth. He is trying to build a "legacy" by acting like a Democrat and will ultimately end up on the trash heap of history with Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson.
I was hoping for reruns of "77 Sunset Strip" during that time slot tonight. ;^)
President Bush would hardly be seen as a lame duck if he fought the Democrats and Rinos like he fought Saddam.
No more political dynasties...too much anemia in the political bloodstream. Thomas Jefferson was right: there needs to be a revolution every 20 years, and the last political revolution was the "Reagan Revolution".
Last November's elections were hardly a revolution. Voters gave the Republicans the equivalent of a "time out" in the form of a two year stint in the minority. The demographics greatly favor the Republican Party, but the nitwits in Washington fail to see it.
Winning issues such as low taxes and deregulation, being pro-life, border security/immigration, and a strong national defense, are the foundation that always pave the way for Republican victories.
Hopefully, Republicans in DC will come to their senses over the next few months.
Conflicting goals. Ethanol reduces power and economy in most cars. Wasting a staple food crop to make ethanol for fuel is pretty foolish. Increased domestic production of oil is the right way to achieve independence from foreign sources.
On a lighter note, my 1999 F150 4x4 with the big Triton V8 turned over 28000 miles this morning. It had 22500 on it when I purchased it used in August 2003. It's really nice to fire up that big engine when the outside temps are below zero. Warms up fast and melts the ice off the windshield. The 4x4 is sure footed in the snow.
Does it really matter what a lame-duck president says he wants for long after he is gone? It should be the STFU address. It gets more meaningless every year.
Agree wholeheartedly.
It does my heart good to fire up my Lincoln Town Car on mornings when the temp is below freezing. Melts ice off the windows, warms the cabin, and it's easy to drive. It only has 99,000 miles on it, and I anticipate driving it until it or I expire.
The White House says it would introduce increased market forces to the health care industry and make coverage more affordable for the uninsured. Aides estimated the plan would represent a tax increase for only about 20 percent of employer-covered workers.
I'm against it on the grounds this proposal further complicates income tax laws. Sure, my business may increase now that I've returned to tax consulting. However, it's bad economic policy to monkey around with tax laws, as more time is spent on less profitable pursuits.
It appears that the ghost of Dick Darman has returned to the White House.
I'm 50. The only reason for not driving that F150 until I expire is availability of parts to keep it in good repair. The auto companies are only obligated to do that for 10 years. Fortunately, the F150 is the most popular vehicle in the U.S. I don't anticipate any support problems unless Ford folds the tent.
My wife bought a 2003 Escape with 20,000 miles on it in June 2004. It is the real "daily driver". Lots of trips to Yellowstone National Park, Salt Lake City and a few trips to San Diego from Pocatello. Nearly weekly trips to Idaho Falls. It just turned over 70,000 miles. She drives to work 5 days a week...a whole 1.5 miles one-way. We drop my oldest son at work 5 days a week and pick him up. That's 2.5 miles one-way. It's still much less expensive than having a dedicated car and insurance for his use...and MUCH safer for the general public. He's a danger on foot :-) My "commute" is 30 feet from where I sleep.
In 2000, our population was 281 million. Today it is 301 million. By 2020 it is projected by the Census Bureau to be 335.8 million. I seriously doubt we can even cut our usage of oil by 20% given the energy needs of an increasing population.
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