Who controls the power?

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COLUMN: Who controls the power?

By Brock Rutter

The Shorthorn (U. Texas-Arlington) 05/29/2001

(U-WIRE) ARLINGTON, Texas -- The $300,000 Enron of Houston contributed to President Bush's inaugural bash probably didn't weigh too heavily on the energy giant's coffers -- not after the even greater sums the company and its executives contributed to the Bush campaign. Besides, like the newly elected president and vice president, the energy business as a whole has reason to celebrate.

America's energy companies had a clear stake in the last presidential election. On one side was Al Gore, a professed environmentalist who in the past advocated greater environmental regulations, including making companies pay for damage to the environment. Remember his 1992 book Earth in the Balance? On the other side was George W. Bush, a former oilman with another former oilman for a running mate.

Based on its clear stake in a Bush victory, the energy industry made the obvious choice and threw its weight and money behind the Bush campaign by a 9-to-1 margin, investing millions in a Bush victory. In the end, Bush won, and it seems to have been money well spent for America's energy companies.

Since taking office, Bush has declared an energy crisis. This crisis, he says, could mean rolling blackouts, as California has seen, elsewhere in the country or $3-per-gallon gas by mid-summer. The solution: more drilling and mining and looser environmental controls. Paradoxically, conservation is not an important part of the plan. In Bush and Cheney's view, a lavish, energy-intensive lifestyle is part of what makes America great. The best way to provide for these needs is to extract more energy from the ground. Energy companies couldn't have asked for a better message.

While energy companies may get what they want, it'll come at the public's expense and at the expense of the integrity of our political process. Since taking office, Bush's approach to energy has been wrongheaded and an injustice to the American people.

First, it is wrong because it erroneously undervalues the health of the world's environment and it over-values relatively minor lifestyle accouterments. It is wrong because it won't benefit the public in the long run. And it is wrong because it flies in the face of what constitutes a conflict of interest for an elected official.

In a 180 degree turnaround from our earlier and more real energy crisis of the late 1970s, when Jimmy Carter appeared on national television in a sweater urging Americans to conserve energy, Bush and Cheney have de-emphasized conservation.

Americans shouldn't have to suffer or go without -- not even for the sake of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Some things might well be more valuable than America's last pristine wilderness or cleaner air.

If the choice were between power for refrigeration to keep our food supply safe, or power to light our homes at night, perhaps greater environmental impact would be justified. But conservation doesn't mean sitting around in the dark. Conservation means carpooling in more efficient cars, using appliances efficiently or closing inefficient, polluting factories.

While Bush wants people to think that greater freedom for energy companies will mean cheaper energy for us, the benefits will be limited to the companies themselves and a select few in the energy business. First of all, if Americans heed Bush and Cheney's message that it's OK to consume more and more, we'll just become bigger and bigger users of energy, sending more and more money to energy companies. And please remember that energy companies don't operate for the public good but to turn a profit. While Enron, the nation's largest energy trader, has posted a whopping 75 percent wholesale-services profits increases during California's current energy crisis, California Sen. Debra Bowen has likened dealing with the company and its perpetual rate increases to having a gun stuck to her head.

And now a personal friend of Enron's chairman lives in the White House.

But Bush is not just a friend to Enron but of the whole energy business, from Texas oil drillers to West Virginia coal miners. The idea that the Bush and Cheney team can examine our nation's energy policy with any degree of impartiality is laughable at best, dangerous at worst. Asking Bush to sign an energy policy is like asking which is better, Tupperware or Rubbermaid, at a Tupperware party. If the current administration wanted to advance its unimaginative, backwards and destructive energy policy with any amount of credibility, it should have let someone else in the Cabinet or Congress advance its agenda, as Jeb wisely stayed out of the fray when his brother's election was on the line.

At least now that Bush has been so indiscreet we can see what his motives are and whom he serves.

His biggest service so far has been to America's energy companies. He has given energy executives unprecedented access to the presidency, rolled back pollution standards, advocated greater extraction of fossil fuels and tried to re-equate conservation with austerity in the American popular conscience. But we should remember that these services did not come for free. America's energy corporations paid for them during the 2000 election.

http://www.uwire.com/content//topops052901003.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 30, 2001

Answers

What a laughable piece of left-wing drivel.

-- JackW (jpayne@webtv.net), May 30, 2001.

What a magician the sinister, evil Bush is. He created this entire energy mess in just his first four months in office.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), May 30, 2001.

Yes, it is amazing at how quickly Bush acted, so that his pals in the energy business could gouge all of us and profit.

-- Billiver (billiver@aol.com), May 30, 2001.

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