A Republican with a conscience? Can it be true????
Sunday, Sept. 7, 2003 6:30 EDT
Arnold Makes His Hummer Green
In a strategic political move to appeal to California’s many enviros, Arnold Schwarzenegger is touting a retrofit of his favorite signature Hummer vehicle – to run on clean-burning hydrogen.
The environment hasn't been key in the platform of a Republican gubernatorial candidate since former Gov. Pete Wilson, now a prominent Schwarzenegger adviser, emphasized it in 1990 during his own gubernatorial campaign, according to a report in the LA Times.
Terry Tamminen, executive director of the Santa Monica-based Environment Now and an Orange County-based mechanic who has converted other vehicles to run on hydrogen and other alternative fuels, is measuring the Hummer to see whether he can quickly get the needed parts.
"It will be the ultimate alternative fuel vehicle," Tamminen told the Times. "It will run on either natural gas or hydrogen."
Schwarzenegger's environmental positions, contained in an eight-page position paper issued last week, are in conflict with the Republican president, who wants to tap more of America's oil and gas reserves.
The environmental position paper is the most detailed policy statement to come out of his campaign so far and was put together with the aid of advisers brought in by Robert Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer.
In the paper the action star says:
He favors energy conservation and solar energy and faults the Bush administration for abandoning the Sierra Nevada Framework, an agreement to protect old-growth trees and wildlife that was based on a decade of negotiations by loggers, government agencies and environmentalists.
He would "call on the federal government to honor its pledge to abide by the policies set forth in this unprecedented compact."
He favors clean air and clean water laws that the Bush administration has sought to weaken. He outlined a program to cut air pollution by 50 percent before the end of the decade, in part by paying people to junk older, heavily polluting cars, and by creating a network of hydrogen refueling stations throughout California, to encourage use of the alternative fuel.
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