Bush Energy Policy Fails Taxpayers and Consumers

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Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273

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Washington, D.C., January 23, 2007—As President Bush prepares to deliver his annual State of the Union address to members of Congress and the American people, advance details of his plans for energy policy constitute a profound failure to advance the goals of affordable, abundant energy for the American people.

The White House’s energy goals focus on reducing gasoline consumption by 20% in the next 10 years, largely through mandating wider use of more expensive alternative fuels and increasing the severity of fuel economy standards which have been shown to compromise vehicle safety.

“Bush’s proposals amount to a giant step back from the goal of a rational energy policy,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Energy Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Instead of increasing affordable and reliable energy supplies, tonight’s plan would raise gas prices on consumers while making the U.S. less economically competitive as transportation costs rise.  Raising energy prices significantly would make Americans less, not more, secure.”

“The real beneficiaries of raising the mandatory use of alternative fuels from 7.5 to 35 billion gallons per year would be special interests because consumers would be required to buy their higher-priced fuels, which by the way already receive outlandish taxpayer subsidies,” said Ebell.  “President Bush is proposing a huge expansion of the corporate welfare state.”

While climate change is cited as the reason for attempting to slow the growth of carbon dioxide emissions from cars, the outline of the evening’s speech omits any mention of the demonstrated futility of emissions limits in the other nations which have embraced them. “At a time when most of Europe – which has enthusiastically embraced the Kyoto Protocol – is seeing emissions increasing faster than in the U.S., it should be obvious that trying to mandate limits on energy use is a dead end,” said Ebell.

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.