It is time again to criticize President Bush's energy plan. There are new developments that should be brought to the attention of the public.
It has recently been made public that in May 2001 the Bush administration used funds designated for research of alternative energy to pay for printing 10,000 copies of his energy policy.
The Bush plan, which emphasized environmentally risky domestic exploration (including drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve) over renewable energy and conservation, is the subject of several lawsuits to determine the influence big energy companies and campaign donors had over the policy.
A recent ruling in one of the lawsuits - brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council - forced the Bush administration's Energy Department to release thousands of pages of records about developing the Bush energy plan. Those documents revealed that the Bush administration spent $135,615 of the Energy Department's solar, renewable energy and conservation budget to print 10,000 copies of the energy plan.
Meanwhile the White House was urging Congress to cut the budget for research into renewable energy and energy efficiency in half. The documents also revealed extensive ties between the Energy Department and energy companies that donated to the Bush campaign in 2000.
According to the released documents, Bush's Energy Department met with dozens of energy industry representatives, including many campaign donors, while developing the administration's energy policy, shunning consumer and environmental groups.
Of the 36 energy industry representatives that met with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, most donated large amounts of unregulated soft money to the Republican party to support Bush's campaign. A dozen of the companies donated $1.2 million to the GOP, most of which went to elect Bush.
According to the documents, Abraham had no meetings with conservation or consumer groups while developing the Bush administration's energy policy.
The Energy Department released the documents under a court order that came as the result of a Freedom of Information request by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Many of the documents had important information blacked out or missing.
Some of them had only a subject line, while thousands of documents included in the order were omitted entirely. The NRDC has said it will challenge those omissions in court.
The NRDC also disputes claims by the Bush administration that it worked the environmental group's recommendations into its final energy policy. The Department of Energy said that nine NRDC recommendations made it in, but the NRDC calls that claim a lie.
So, regardless of what happened, the facts need to be out in the open for the public. Environmentalists need to be heard on this matter because it involves drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.
The matter needs to be resolved quickly. We can't let the Bush administration get away wasting funds. It isn't right.
Write to Courtney at sturgeoncourtney@hotmail.com
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