WASHINGTON, 7 July 2005 — While President George W. Bush is urging nations to use less oil, his administration has opposed major increases in US vehicle fuel standards that could save millions of barrels of oil a year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Speaking yesterday as the leaders of the major industrialized countries traveled to Scotland for a Group of Eight meeting, Bush said nations should develop alternative energy sources to oil and natural gas to help control global warming.
Climate change is a top issue at the G-8 meeting. The United States, the world’s largest oil consumer and the biggest spewer of total carbon dioxide emissions that heat the atmosphere, is the only one of the countries at the summit not to have signed the Kyoto treaty to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
The United States is doing its part, administration officials say, pointing to over $20 billion in spending on climate change activities by the end of 2005.
That amount includes systems to monitor land and ocean conditions, as well as programs to wean US dependence on crude oil and get more energy from renewable sources like corn-based ethanol and wind and solar power. The administration has proposed spending $1.7 billion to develop hydrogen-powered cars and the stations to fuel them, more than $2 billion on low-emission coal plants and $3.6 billion in tax incentives to spur use of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.
Environmental groups said Bush is merely trying to repackage to an international audience an energy plan he pushed in the US Congress. “He’s trying to sell the same horse twice here,” said Dan Becker of the Sierra Club.
The administration’s position that developing countries, particularly China, should turn to new energy sources is seen as hypocritical by some energy experts. “(Bush) ought to take his own advice. I think it’s a bit disingenuous,” said Frank Verrastro, director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Environmental groups and US lawmakers have long called for sharply higher fuel mileage requirements on new vehicles as the only real way to rein in US oil consumption, reduce crude imports and slash tailpipe emissions.
Bush administration officials say they are acting to curb vehicle fuel usage, but they add market initiatives would work better than mandates to spur Detroit to produce cleaner cars.
“We have a multi-pronged strategy on fuel economy,” Jim Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said, pointing to a $4,000 proposed tax credit for consumers to buy fuel-efficient vehicles like hybrids.