When I read stories like this, it reminds me of everything I hate about his administration, everything I hate about the Republican party, and everything I hate about politics in general:
With Congress poised for a final vote on the energy bill, the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision Tuesday to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy.
But a copy of the report, embargoed for publication Wednesday, was sent to The New York Times by a member of the E.P.A. communications staff just minutes before the decision was made to delay it until next week. The contents of the report show that loopholes in American fuel economy regulations have allowed automakers to produce cars and trucks that are significantly less fuel-efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980’s.
Releasing the report this week would have been inopportune for the Bush administration, its critics said, because it would have come on the eve of a final vote in Congress on energy legislation six years in the making. The bill, as it stands, largely ignores auto mileage regulations.
The executive summary of the copy of the report obtained by The Times acknowledges that “fuel economy is directly related to energy security,” because consumer cars and trucks account for about 40 percent of the nation’s oil consumption. But trends highlighted in the report show that carmakers are not making progress in improving fuel economy, and environmentalists say the energy bill will do little to prod them.
“Something’s fishy when the Bush administration delays a report showing no improvement in fuel economy until after passage of their energy bill, which fails to improve fuel economy,” said Daniel Becker, the Sierra Club’s top global warming strategist. “It’s disturbing that despite high gas prices, an oil war and growing concern about global warming pollution, most automakers are failing to improve fuel economy.”
Eryn Witcher, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said the timing of the release of the report had nothing to do with the energy bill deliberations.
“We are committed to sharing our scientific studies with the public in the most comprehensive and understandable format possible,” she said. “Issue experts are reviewing the fuel economy data and we look forward to providing a summary of the information next week.”
Some of what the report says reaffirms what has long been known. Leaps in engine technology over the last couple of decades have been mostly used to make cars faster, not more fuel-efficient, and the rise of sport utility vehicles and S.U.V.-like pickup trucks has actually sapped efficiency. The average 2004 model car or truck got 20.8 miles per gallon, about 6 percent less than the 22.1 m.p.g. of the average new vehicle sold in the late 1980’s, according to the report.
At the same time, while General Motors and the Ford Motor Company are the most common targets of environmental groups, the E.P.A. report shows that several foreign automakers have had the sharpest declines in recent fuel economy performance as they move aggressively into the truck market.
If this story is true, there you have it- Washington in a nutshell. This administration in a nutshell.
I personally don’t care what the Bush administration’s overall position on CAFE standards is- there are legitimate arguments that there should be none in the first place. Fine. Make that argument. But make it honestly, and make it on the merits. Don’t delay reports, massage the truth, connive, manipulate, and procrastinate.
This energy bill will be addressing issues that go well beyond driving your car to work or heating your house, as energy becomes more of a national security issue tha it ever was, so an honest argument shouldn’t be too much to ask for from leadership. This bill will influence behavior, impact the tax code, and shape the very future of the nation.
This energy bill is already several years late- an extra month is really inconsequential. If it is true that the reasons for delaying the release of this report are purely political, that may be smart politics, but it is also bad leadership, bad management, and a breach of faith.
It is the type of behavior I would suspect would come from the Morris-led Clinton White House, but it is behavior I have grown to expect from the Bush administration.
*** Update ***
The energy bill passes. Yeah, team. We can move to discredit the EPA report later. Gotta have priorities.
Mr Furious
How about I give you a couple more contemptable pieces of action/inaction?…
You thought the Bankruptcy Bill was bad? Here comes the rotten cherry for that bullshit sundae.
Bill Frist has his priorities in order. Nothing happens ’til we take care of the NRA.
Steve
Bush has been very up-front about his agenda. He says we need “an energy bill.” And “an energy bill” we have. If you want an energy bill that actually DOES something constructive, well then, he never promised you a rose garden.
norbizness
The best historical analogy I can use for this Administration is the Scapa Flow scuttling off the coast of Scotland following the World War I armistice. Our international credibility, finances, and long-term fiscal and environmental health are being shot to shit, and the pace is becoming more rapid as the midterm elections are on the horizon with the Administration’s favorability ratings at 40% (and Congress’ at 30%).
Wait, here’s a better one. Hugo Drax trying to destroy the world after escaping to the space station in Moonraker or Karl Stromberg starting a new undersea empire in The Spy Who Loved Me.
Mike S
“We are committed to sharing our scientific
studies(spin) with the public in the mostcomprehensive and understandable(confusing and misrepresented) format possible,” she said. “Issue(Industry) experts arereviewing(changing) the fuel economy data and we look forward to providing asummary(whitewash) of the information next week.”If we had a real congress this type of thing would draw outrage from both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately we don’t and I expect John will be a very lonely voice against this on the right side of the blogasphere.
jg
Talk about how bad this is all day. Won’t make any difference. The Stormys and DougJs will stick with the repubs next year when the troops come home ‘victoriously’ and gay marriage becomes a wedge issue again. All this important stuff will be drowned out.
ppGaz
If only the Cheney Administration would apply that standard to Iraq ….
Defense Guy
Sadly, in terms of truthfulness, this administration reminds me of every other one that I have lived through.
jg
No shit. If more of you saw this as the people vs a corrupt incompetent gov’t rather than liberal vs conservative maybe we could get somewhere. Too many people are being duped by talk radio and FOX. Telling them that everytime an issue is brought against this gov’t that its just liberal hatred of Bush. Its not. There are valid points being raised.
Tim F
Helen Thomas said it better.
Worst.
President.
Ever.
Other Presidents sucked; Bush went pro.
Aziz
John,
maybe this would be worthy of cross-posting at Red State? Of late your voice has been missing, and it shows.
Lee
The House just slipped in a 1.5 billion pork project to teh engery bill AFTER the committee has closed deliberations
Link to my entry
Defense Guy
Don’t think it doesn’t work both ways, because it does. You are correct that there are real issues with this president that have little to do with left vs. right. Our border policy is a big one for me.
Richard Bottoms
Well then I’m glad I voted for the other guy.
BTW, how’s that war going? I hear the Army is 12,000 short on new recruits. But we’re bugging out next year, most likely before the elections I’ll bet.
No politics there I’m sure.
jg
But my point was that talk radio and FOX won’t let the discussions happen. They spin everything in the administrations favor so that valid points don’t get heard unless they come out of Rushs mouth. They have an army of disciples who won’t listen to ANYONE else. Discussion is dead. This president can do no wrong and they will spin wedge issues against whoever the dems put up in 08. People still laugh at ‘I voted for it before I voted against it’. Try to talk rationally with a FOX disciple about that spin job and see how far you get. You’ll never reach the easy first point, how did a senator get 2 votes?
war bird
HO HO HEY HEY WE DONT NEED THE EPA this is another goverment agentcy that should be shut down its just too full of buricratic idiots
Another Jeff
Yeah, Defense Guy, take notes. the ONLY reason there isn’t more dialogue today is because of one cable news channel and AM radio.
All these tolerant lefty trolls that come here are just dying to sit down and have rational and intelligent discussions, but because of Rush Limbaugh and FOX News, they just can’t.
Defense Guy
I am curious how you think the ‘I voted for it…’ is spin, care to elaborate?
You are only seeing things from one side, as I could just as easily restate what you said and replace Fox with MoveOn or Air America.
Mithrandir
Quite honestly, this report just spells out the change in the auto market. So? We buy more vehicles classified as “trucks” than we did in the late ’80s. So the comparison quoted isn’t really a “fair” one, and nor does it mean we have to change the numbers. Will raising the EPA MPG on a car change this average? Probably not, more people will flood to trucks, probably leading to even lower averages (now that we feel it necessary to lump cars & trucks together).
So the answer is to raise the average for “trucks” right? Well, that really hurts the economy because “trucks” are used for commerce (where as cars are predominently private people-movers). Technology still dictates as MPG goes up, engine power goes down. Well, unless costs go up of course. :^) Both of which consumers don’t like, don’t ya’ know?
The EPA MPG regs are still “social engineering” by the government. Do we need more meddling? Before being flamed, I’ll anser that, of course, “it depends/maybe.”
What needs to happen is re-classification of “trucks.” Sorry, but a Toyota Highlander isn’t a “truck.” It’s a 4WD tall Camry station wagon. Coming up with a common sense yet new set of vehicle classification will actually help everyone. Consumers will buy “cars” that get good gas mileage. Commercial purchasers will get the power necessary for transport.
It sounds like I’m arguing against making changes to EPA MPG numbers, but I’m not. But it also isn’t quite the “up in arms” situation we’re all making it. It’s quite honestly, business as usual. It’s just that those that used to be in power are now whining more than ever. Which of course interpreted and reported as “Anti-Christ in the White House.”
Mike S
Translation:
[Cultist like Blank Stare] “GOP good. All GOP organs good. Anyone who disagree, bad. GOP good.”
Rick
If the Bush White House weren’t so completely distracted by the Wilson leak investigation, perhaps the President would be able to actually get something done — besides sign CAFTA, the highway bill, and the energy bill into law; read all the improving economic figures; celebrate his still-bullet-proof Supreme Court nomination; and continue along semi-stealthily on 2006 fundraising and candidate recruitment.
http://www.alarmingnews.com/archives/003398.html
Mike S.–Not exactly a stinging rejoinder there. Rubber/glue for typists.
Cordially…
Another Jeff
Cordial Rick,
That’s the funniest part. These dipshit rejects from Atrios and Kos just come here and spew out talking points, and then they just accuse anyone that isn’t also a Kos/Atrios reject of spewing out talking points or being blindly loyal.
The few Republicans that still come here, ie, the ones that haven’t bailed because they’re sick of arguing with unemployed, braindead loser rejects from kos/atrios, criticize Bush and Republicans in Congress all the time, but all these mental-midgets like Mike S and his ilk can come up with is “Fox News bad” or “oh yeah, is that what Rush said”.
Mike S
I guess the concept for good Republican governing is how many bills they pass, not whether they are good bills.
Darone L
Even worse is to couple the Energy Bill with what happened last night with the CAFTA bill. Years ago when Dick Cheney was in the House and the Democratic leadership held a vote over for an extra 15 minutes, Cheney called it the “the greatest abuse of democracy he’d ever seen.” Now you have these repeated midnight votes with an extra hour or so to wrangle and cajole every vote possible until they can wring enough votes out of submission for whatever crappy piece of legislation they have. Partisan Republicans can gloss over this type of behavior if they want to, but when the Democrats enivitably get back in power someday cries of abuse and corruption are going to fall on deaf ears when they decide to pull these un-democratic tricks.
Stormy70
All good Republican bills look bad to the lefty Democrats. I was for the bankruptcy bill, the NRA bill, and the CAFTA agreement.
Or they call you stupid (Sojourner, I’m looking at you) instead of debating you. I like alot of the Dems on this board, and occassionally we will have a legitimate, non-flaming debate.
The Wilson leak is not distracting Bush from the forign policy accomplishments I listed yesterday on the Nadagate thread. All hail, Darth Rove!
Mike S
Oh SNAP! The cultist, another Jeff, called me a mental midget.
This may be the perfect example of the current GOP. The only thing that matters is a “win” for the GOP. It doesn’t matter if the bill is good as long as it passes. It doesn’t matter if all of the info is given. Hell, it doesn’t even matter if the administration lies about it, just look at what happened with the medicare bill’s cost. One hundred billion dollars and barely a peep.
This is not your father’s Republican party. There’s no honesty or integrity left. The only thing that matters is the party and the country comes in second.
Fools like you make me laugh. You don’t give a damn if the administration with holds anything from you. You are a happy GOP bukkake recipient, only this is a different fetish raining down on you. But that won’t matter to you because the people standing over you are Republicans. And yellow is the new white in the world of spin.
albedo
A bit OT, but I wouldn’t go to War Bird’s website unless you’re using Mozilla and/or have a condom on your computer.
Another Jeff
Wow, five strawmen in one post. Impressive, Mikey!
Okay, Mikey, I’ll humor you. Find one pro-Bush thing I’ve said in the last two weeks on this blog.
I’m waiting. Really, it shouldn’t be that hard….still waiting.
Dipshits like you are the reason Democrats are in for a rude awakening in ’06 and ’08, because no matter how many fuck-ups Bush and the Republican Congress make, and as much as people are pretty sick of a lot of Republicans, they sure as hell don’t want to be in party that has people like you in it.
W.B. Reeves
Its wonderful when someone gives such a splendid example of intelligent debate.
Mike S
You don’t know shit about me and I don’t about you. What I do know is that there is a reflexive defence of everything GOP going on regardless of what happens. I haven’t seen a rational debate in ages and both sides are at fault a good deal of the time. Even when I have called for one by telling people on my side they are off base the shit goes on. I was pleased when Stormy acknowleged that I had brought up something she termed a “great” topic.
I’ve said many times before that if I were to meet most of the people here in a bar we would get along famously and debate would be respectfull. The internets are very emotional places where it’s easy to fly off the handle, and maybe I did unfairly with you.
I battle my own side frequently. Unfortunately I see the same thing happen on the right too infrequently. That causes me to paint with too broad a brush sometines.
jg
They took his quote and spun it to make him look like a flip flopper who was actually the one responsible for the fact that the army wasn’t properly armed. The ad was a response to him calling out Bush for starting the Iraq war without an adequately equipped military. The ad was a response saying it was actually Kerry’s fault because he voted down a bill that contained the funding. First of all the bill he’s talking about came to vote 8 months after the war ‘ended’, second he voted for it but it came back to teh senate for re-vote. And it was changed. Why did it come back? What was the change? Aren’t these important questions or is it better to just laugh at the way he’s depicted in the ad and pull a lever for Bush?
Defense Guy
It is kind of ludicrous to be calling out your opponent for a failure of provision, when you are actually on record voting against the same. So Kerry shot himself in the foot on that one, and it stuck. It wasn’t the only one either.
It is interesting that you fault the Republicans or Bush for that.
The Quiet Storm
Hey Defense Guy! How about we fault the Republicans for lying about the WMD in Iraq?
BinkyBoy
What Kerry said was exactly right, he voted for the bill. It passed, but was sent back for additions. Kerry disagreed with those additions, Republicans refused to remove them and Kerry voted against it.
Nothing about flipping or flopping when changes were made that made him decide not to support it until changes were made.
Damn those facts, they always get in the way of a good liberal bashing.
jg
Kerry voted for it.
Bush threatened to veto the bill if the part where the war is paid for by reversing the tax cuts for the rich isn’t removed.
It went back, the funding was done another way AND whoever got the rebuilding contract (guess who?) wouldn’t have to account for the money they spend. $20 billion blank check.
Kerry voted against it.
Again the point is missed that this bill came to the floor 8 months after the war ended. It can’t be used as the reason the soldiers went to war without adequate armor and equipment.
Marcos
I’m moving to Canada. I just hope northerly winds don’t blow too much of the stench up there.
Sojourner
And how much do the health problems from pollution cost the economy?
Sojourner
You don’t debate. You make a comment (e.g., I’ve seen no evidence for torture) and refuse to look at the evidence when it’s offered to you. Then a day or two later, you come back and make the same comment. It’s pretty obvious that you’re not interested in facts that contradict your position. Sorry but a position is not valid just because somebody wants to believe it. And what you don’t realize is that many of the positions we libs hold are now becoming the accepted positions of the majority of Americans. If the average American, who probably spends a few minutes catching up on the news each day, can figure it out, why can’t you? Spend less time posting here and more time reading about what’s really going on.
Sojourner
And I was all for the “Do Not Call” bill. So your statement is not true. The bankruptcy bill is a disaster for many families. The reality is something like 90% of the people who declare bankruptcy do so in response to a significant medical crisis or through divorce. Given the lousy state of health insurance in this country, this bill is obscene. And I am furious with Biden and the other Dems who voted for it.
I’m not sure which NRA bill you are referring to but I am for gun control. The second amendment doesn’t guarantee zero restrictions on gun ownership any more than the first amendment guarantees all free speech.
I haven’t followed CAFTA enough to have a position.
So Stormy, we have legitimate reasons to oppose some Republican legislation.
Sojourner
I’d try to explain it to you but I doubt you would understand. It’s a bit more complicated than GOP = good, Dem = bad.
ppGaz
Soj has it exactly right, Stormy. Sorry.
jg
The cry of Liberal Media is to keep people from hearing anything but the conservative message. How else do you keep a low paid ,no insurance having day laborer voting republican?
Stormy70
Where is evidence that there is systemic torture happening at Gitmo? The FBI report that Durbin relied on has been discredited. Send me the link that shows actual torture has gone on, and has been proved in a military court or civilian court concerning Gitmo. I want an actual link, not a link to an oped or a Kos like diarist peddling the lastest “Gannon” conspiracy.
Sojourner
The US has officially admitted it.
Sojourner
Crap. My link didn’t come through.
http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2005/06/24/afx2110388.html
Hey Stormy. Do you know how to use google? You should be doing this yourself instead of expecting other people to do it for you.
Stormy70
Why didn’t the document ever turn up? Could it be the UN lied? Nah, the UN would never lie about the US. Too busy enabling the child molesters in the Congo and East Timor.
Sojourner
What the hell are you talking about?
Stormy70
This article stated their would be a document coming out that the article was based on. Did it ever come out in May like it was supposed to? Why wasn’t it all over the news? The NYT would have printed something about it for sure. Sounds like an anonymous source spouted off, and the released report said no such thing. I looked for it, but didn’t find it.
Sojourner
Thanks for giving me my first laugh of the day. I can understand why you would challenge the article since it was provided by that fine liberal publication, Forbes.
Did it ever occur to you that the reason you didn’t hear about this is because you are so incredibly ignorant about political affairs? You’re still claiming no torture occurred in spite of the fact that it’s well documented. Hell, even the Bush administration doesn’t deny it. How embarassing to be later to the party than they were.
I am dead serious when I suggest that you learn how to google. Your strategy of waiting until information bites you in the ass isn’t an effective one.