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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (48145)	11/11/2005 3:10:16 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361076

Powering up for 2006 -- and beyond Hillary Clinton joins the pack in calling for greener energy policy Amanda Griscom Little, Grist Magazine Hillary Clinton has joined a growing claque of both Democrats and Republicans swigging from the cup of clean-energy Kool-Aid as they gear up for the 2006 congressional elections. In the past two months, the New York senator has popped up at a major Arctic Refuge rally, a high-profile global-warming conference, and a clean-technology investor symposium to make fervent calls for cleaner, greener energy policy. In a speech delivered two weeks ago to a group of investors gathered at the Cleantech Venture Forum in Washington, D.C., Clinton staked out her ground, outlining a plan "to get America on track for a smarter, more secure, and cleaner energy future." ...Energy looks increasingly likely to be a key issue for Clinton not just in her 2006 Senate reelection campaign, but in her much-anticipated bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. She has been careful, however, to couch her energy vision largely in terms of its economic and security advantages, giving less prominence to eco-benefits -- perhaps because they might detract from the hawkish persona she likes to project. Clinton's newfound enthusiasm for energy is likely also spurred on by the efforts of some of her political foes to seize the issue. Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly is one recent right-wing convert to conservation. "You can get fuel efficiency by demanding efficiency out of Detroit," he said during an Oct. 24 radio broadcast, radically departing from his usual regulations-be-damned rhetoric. "You know, the government has a right to protect the environment, and it is a national-security issue, so they can say to Detroit, 'Look, we know you have the technology to do it. And if you have [cars that get] 30 [miles per gallon] and up, we'll, you know, we encourage you. And if you don't, then we're going to tax your vehicles more because they're harming our country.' The government has a right to do that." In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina, even the Bush administration talked up energy conservation and introduced Energy Hog, an antihero mascot meant to remind Americans to curb their consumption. Prominent members of Clinton's own party are getting in the game too. Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), Barack Obama (Ill.), Harry Reid (Nev.), and Maria Cantwell (Wash.) have lately been delivering ever-louder clean-energy messages. Last month, Lieberman unveiled a plan that calls for oil savings of 5 million barrels a day by 2015, as well as the mass production of alternative-fuel and hybrid vehicles. ... And where were leading Democrats this summer when the energy bill chockablock with Big Oil handouts -- and embarrassingly weak on support for renewable energy and efficiency -- was being rammed through Congress? ... In the end, more than half of Democrats in the Senate voted in favor of the full energy bill, including Durbin, Lieberman, Obama, and Cantwell. If Clinton wants to be a leader on clean, forward-looking energy policy, she could start by convincing her own Democratic colleagues. With anger over soaring fuel costs and anxiety over U.S. dependence on foreign oil, the nation is primed as never before to hear substantive new energy proposals. Whether Clinton -- or any other leader, Democrat or Republican -- can meet that demand with more than lofty rhetoric remains to be seen. (8 November 2005) energybulletin.net