Okay, another installment of mystery picture. Anyone want to guess?

So, it looks as if the Bush energy plan is going to pass into law fairly soon. As expected, there’s very little encouragement here for tighter emissions controls, a problem that Bush apparantly feels isn’t a problem, despite nearly all science indicating it is. Instead, the bill will give tax breaks, to the tune of $11.5 billion dollars, to spur the production of oil, gas and some renewables/alternatives such as solar and wind. Don’t expect much on the renewable side, though. The overwhelming result here will be that big oil and gas companies get some tax breaks. It remains to be seen if gas prices will go up or down. I don’t expect it.

What the bill certainly won’t do is cut our dependance on foreign oil. To be fair, no bill constructed today can do that. We don’t have even close to enough oil supply here in the States to support our obnoxious carbon usage and skewing a bill too much towards renewable energy today would topple the economy like a house of cards.

Is this bad? For the enviroment, yes. It’s sad, in fact, that our leaders in both parties can’t wean themselves off the crack pipe called “big political donations.” I had to laugh when I was watching Lewis Black’s segment on a recent Daily Show, when they played video of Hilary Clinton speaking out against violent/sexual content in video games by saying that these games have a similar negative affect on children that alcohol, tobacco and firearms do. Black’s comment, and I’m paraphrasing, was “well, isn’t that funny? Hilary’s speaking out against the top 3 financial contributors to her party!”

Of course, there’s more to the bill than I’ve explained here, but that’s the crux of it. It’s better than what we have now, but it’s still a real kick in the gut to see that Washington seems so powerless to the big oil companies. I guess that’s what happens when you have a bunch of out-of-touch men in their 50’s and 60’s running the show – they still think it’s the 1950’s or 1960’s.