Bush Pushes Energy "Independence", Slashes Weatherization Funding

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON - While President George W Bush kept his promise to put more money in his proposed 2007 budget for research to develop alternative energy sources, the administration also wants to cut a government program proven to save energy.

The Energy Department's budget would increase funding by millions of dollars for solar, wind, ethanol, hydrogen fuel and nuclear research to help fulfill Bush's pledge in his State of the Union speech to slash US oil imports from Middle East suppliers. However, the department's budget would also cut 32 percent of the money for weatherization assistance grants, which help low-income families buy storm windows and insulation for their homes to make them more energy-efficient. The program's funding would fall to $164.2 million.

The budget would also eliminate all of the current $23.1 million for geothermal technology. US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman defended the budget cuts, saying the government wanted to put its money in programs that would yield better results.

"Well, these are tough choices," Bodman told reporters at a briefing on the department's budget. "It's not that some of these other areas don't have supports and don't have advocates, but it was a judgment that was made by the president ultimately that this is where we should focus our limited resources."

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34944/story.htm

[jpak]

1. Conservation is a personal virtue

ChimpCo wants to cut heating assistance as well.

Let them freeze to death in the dark.

unbelievable....

[kenny blankenship]

2. Waste not, want not: Bush wasted no time proving himself full of shit !

[glitch]

3. Bush is a liar. If he's saying it, it's a lie. Not only is it a lie, but

he is doing the exact opposite.

[phantom power]

4. Predictable, I suppose.

Weatherization is the most cost-effective energy saving thing you can do. And it dosen't maximize Exxon's profits. So, that's two fatal strikes against it right there, in the BushCo universe.