May 2, 2001
Capital Journal
We Want Energy! We Want Green!
America Just Can't Seem to Decide
By GERALD F. SEIB
IF YOU THOUGHT the country was divided over last fall's Florida election fight, just wait: It may soon split in precisely the same way over President Bush's coming energy plan.
Right now, Mr. Bush looks prescient for declaring early and often in his presidential campaign that energy was a looming problem. In the face of rolling brownouts in California and $2 a gallon gas in Chicago, few now would disagree with him. In fact, when the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll a week ago asked people to name the most important economic issue facing the country, energy prices topped the list by a 3-to-1 margin.
But that doesn't erase a fundamental political problem that Mr. Bush will face later this month when he unveils his plan to ramp up energy production. Americans think they have to make a choice between protecting the environment and finding more energy, and they are split down the middle on that choice.
Look inside that same Journal/NBC News poll for a graphic illustration. Americans were asked whether their first priority was producing energy, even if that meant making some compromises on the environment, or protecting the environment, even if that meant energy supplies would be more limited. Given that choice between an emphasis on energy or an emphasis on the environment, Americans divided evenly: 44% named energy, 44% the environment. (The rest either said they weren't sure or wanted some of both.)
Moreover, members of the two political parties were mirror images of each other on the question. About six in 10 Democrats named the environment as the first priority, and about six in 10 Republicans named energy. Thus, energy and the environment right now are the political equivalent of the perfect storm: They bring together all the emotions necessary to divide the country precisely along party lines.
The upshot is that Mr. Bush faces some interesting choices in selling an energy plan that, as Vice President Dick Cheney made clear this week, will focus much more on increasing production than on conserving energy.
THE PATH THE administration plans to pursue to get out of this energy box will be to try to convince Americans of something the president argued last year during the presidential campaign: that choosing between energy and a clean environment today is a "false choice."
The argument is simply that advances in technology make it possible to drill for, transport and then burn fossil fuels a lot more cleanly than before. "It's not as much either-or as it used to be," says Mary Matalin, counselor to Mr. Cheney, who is head of the task force composing the Bush energy plan.
That obviously is true, to a point. As Mr. Cheney noted in a speech this week, improved seismic and drilling techniques have reduced the environmental effects of oil drilling in Alaska, and cars are cleaner and more efficient.
Still, the argument goes only so far. The reality is that 51% of the nation's electricity comes from burning coal, and much-vaunted "clean coal" technologies aren't advanced enough to make that a clean process. (Why else would the administration be seeking more than $2 billion to research them further?) So coal and utility companies already are lobbying the administration to ease clean-air regulations so they can expand their old plants without assuming stricter new environmental obligations.
Moreover, as Mr. Cheney notes, the real problem America faces now isn't so much finding raw energy as building the facilities to get it processed and delivered. "If it were raining oil," Ms. Matalin notes, "there isn't enough refining capacity" to turn it into gasoline. Building more refineries and generators, and stringing more electricity lines, inevitably will require easing the regulatory and licensing requirements that stand in their way right now. And it would be foolish to pretend there aren't deep environmental concerns about nuclear power.
In short, there are real choices to be made in the trade-off between energy and the environment, and they are controversial. There's little point in Mr. Bush pretending otherwise. He clearly thinks it's time to tilt the balance back toward energy production and transmission, and the poll indicates Americans sense that. And who knows? Considering Americans' conflicted views and their underlying economic concerns about energy, it's just possible that some of those tree-hugging suburban yuppies driving sport-utility vehicles with 25 gallon gas tanks will decide they agree with him.
Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com4 |
