StopGlobalWarming.org

Friday, June 30, 2006

Join the "Troops Home" Fast on July 4th

A Message and Invitation from Troops Home Fast organizers:

President Bush makes a stealth visit to the Green Zone in Baghdad for a quick photo op with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, while Iraqis are plagued by ongoing violence PROVOKED by the very presence of the US troops. Hillary Clinton, the most likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, supports the war and believes we shouldn't set a timetable for withdrawal. And when elected officials finally make a positive move, in both the House and Senate, by passing an amendment against permanent bases in Iraq, the amendment is simply yanked from the bill in the conference committee. If we don't do more to stop the US occupation of Iraq, we will be there for DECADES to come, and our children and children's children will live is a state of perpetual war.

US soldiers have been forced to put their bodies on the line; the lives of the Iraqi people are at risk every day. It's time for us to do something to show the depth of our commitment to bring our troops home and allow the Iraqis to rebuild their own nation. That's why CODEPINK and Gold Star Families for Peace, together with activists across the country, will be starting an open-ended hunger strike, called Troops Home Fast, on July 4th, in front of the White House and around the country.

*****

As a sign of solidarity with Cindy, CODEPINK and the other long-term fasters, we are asking you to join us by fasting for at least one day. It could be on July 4, our launch date, or any other time during the summer. You can fast from wherever you are, or better yet, join us in Washington DC. We've already received commitments from hundreds of people, including Susan Sarandon, Willie Nelson, Danny Glover, Dick Gregory, Dolores Huerta, Eve Ensler, as well as military veterans, religious leaders, students, and women's groups. Go to our new website to see who's fasting and to sign up.

Diane Wilson, who has engaged in several other hunger strikes in her history as an environmental activist, says she will not set an end date to her fast. "My goal is to bring the troops home. I don't know how long I can fast, but I'm making this open-ended," she says. "I plan to take this as far as I've ever taken anything in my 58 years. I fear our future is at stake, and I'm ready to make a major sacrifice." Click here to read more about Diane's reasons for making this commitment.

Throughout history, fasts have been used to end wars, gain the right to vote, free political prisoners, improve conditions for workers (click here to read more). With your help, this fast will awaken the public, pressure elected officials and move us closer to peace. Please join us for a day or more as a show of support for the Iraqi people and our soldiers, and your commitment to bring our troops back home-FAST!

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Soldiers Refusing to Participate in "Illegal and Immoral War"

From TomPaine.com

Ret. Col. Ann Wright
June 27, 2006


Col. Ann Wright served in the U.S. Army for 13 years and in the U.S. Army Reserves for 16 years. She also served for 16 years in the U.S. diplomatic corps, and in that capacity helped reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism as the acting U.S. ambassador during the rebel takeover of Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1997.

June 27 was a National Day of Action in support of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who, on June 22, refused an order to deploy with his unit to Iraq.

Watada said he could not participate in an “illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression. My oath of office is to protect and defend America’s laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath.”

Watada’s refusal to deploy to Iraq raises ethical, moral and legal questions, not only for him, but for other military personnel as well as for civilians. He believes the war on Iraq is a violation of international and domestic law and is therefore illegal. Watada says that as a military officer of honor and integrity he must refuse an order to participate in an illegal act.

Watada joins 10 other members of the U.S. military who—as a matter of conscience—have refused to either go to Iraq or to return there and have been court-martialed for their actions. Two are currently in prison for their stands. In addition, over 200 U.S. military personnel have gone to Canada to avoid being sent to Iraq, nine of whom have gone public with their war resistance. Over 6,400 U.S. military are absent without leave (AWOL), while thousands who have returned from AWOL have been given administrative discharges instead of courts-martial. The military has not provided information on whether those who have turned themselves in were AWOL due to opposition to the war.

To read more of this article, click here

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

How "Real ID" Legislation Is Depriving people of citizenship rights across the Nation

From "Democracy Dispatches," a DEMOS EJournal:

Impending "Realness:" Transgender Communities Dealt a Blow By REAL ID
by Cole Krawitz

06/27/2006
Recently election reformers have focused a great deal of attention on the real potential for a rollback in voting rights with the flurry of highly restrictive photo ID laws moving across state legislatures. Adding to an already layered system, there have been serious restrictions tacked on the franchise in states like Georgia and Indiana, while Wisconsin's Governor Doyle keeps the disastrous effects of a five-time proposed photo ID bill at bay with his veto pen.

Let's hope he has enough ink.

Rather than protecting, it is estimated that photo ID requirements at the polls will cost millions of eligible voters their vote, most of them elderly, people of color, low-income or recently relocated. The people with the most to say this election season may well lose their vote -- if they haven't already -- in the next presidential election, thanks to their public servants in the U.S. House and Senate.

After the passage of the REAL ID Act -- a dangerous add-on to an $82 billion military spending bill in 2005 -- the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform recommended using REAL ID for voter identification at the polls. Election reformers and civil rights advocates responded with a swift outcry. They did so again a few weeks ago, when Senator Mitch McConnell tried to attach a REAL ID requirement for voters to the immigration bill. The challenge continues as photo ID bills sweep state legislatures, and as states move to implement REAL ID legislation by 2008. Hurricane survivors, African Americans, Latinos, grandmas and grandpas, young people -- you might have to kiss even more of your rights goodbye. That should scare you.
To read more of this article by Cole Krawitz, click here.

Friday, June 23, 2006

The "Final Offer" at GM: The "Biggest Employer Buyout in American History"

Tonight's NOW, on PBS, is giving attention to recent events at GM, and the stakes for GM workers. (Check local listings here.)



Today, over 100,000 General Motors auto workers must make a pivotal deal or no deal decision: stick to careers with uncertain futures, or allow GM to buy them out and walk away from jobs that many have held their entire lives. On NOW, a former GM employee returns to Michigan to find out what happens when an entire generation of autoworkers is asked to leave so that their company may survive.

The biggest employer buyout in American history, and the legacy it leaves behind. Tonight on NOW.

NOW Online

The NOW Web site follows up this week's show with exclusive features and up-to-date information, including:

Web-Exclusive Interview: What Went Wrong at GM
An automotive editor and authority on General Motors product lines speaks to NOW about the roots of GM's woes

Web-Exclusive Interview: Is a Benefits Crisis Looming?
A professor of management and former chairman of American Motors Corporation talks about the scaling back of worker benefits

Timeline: GM's Journey

Perspectives: GM Employees Speak Out

The Ins and Outs of Buyouts

Our Democracy Is Being Undermined Step By Step

When one voter anywhere is deprived of the equal right to vote, without correction, democracy for all Americans is threatened--

What is going on right now in Ohio is threatening the democratic rights of all US citizens.

According to ColorOfChange.org, Kenneth Blackwell--Ohio's Secretary of State--is once again trying to manipulate the election in favor of the Republican party by creating ridiculous new rules that will suppress the vote in Black and low-income communities. Please join us in fighting this attack on minority voting rights by sending your message here:

In the 2000 and 2004 elections, Republicans relentlessly attacked the voting rights of Black people. Their dirty politics undermined one of our most precious and hard-won rights, but they also helped the Republicans win the White House--twice--so we know they won't stop suppressing our votes without a fight.

Now, the fight's on in Ohio, where Kenneth Blackwell has created ridiculous new voter registration rules that make it virtually impossible for non-profit and faith-based groups to register voters.

What's unfolding in Ohio is not a localized case of a policy that happens to be bad for Black and poor voters. It's part of a coordinated, nation-wide strategy by Republicans to keep people from exercising their right to vote. If Blackwell gets his way, Ohio will suppress the votes of tens of thousands of Black and low-income voters and set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the country.

On June 26th--this coming Monday--the Ohio Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) will consider Blackwell's new rules, and it has the opportunity to reject them. Please join us in calling on JCARR to stop this anti-democratic scheme in its tracks.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Beyond the Policy Laundry List: What Does It Mean to Create a New Democratic Direction for the Country?

From New Democratic Agenda:

A New Beginning?:
Democratic Leader Pelosi Recognizes
What the Foundation Must Be to
Establish Effective Democratic Politics
For the 21st Century


“Ours must be a government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people.' That means all of the American people. Republicans have made it a government of, by, and for a few of the people. America can do better. We can and we will. With this agenda, Democrats will create the most open and honest government in history, and put power back where it belongs – in the hands of all the people.”

--Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

Yes, America (and the Democratic Party) can do better!--

Unfortunately, while the so-called "New Direction for America" Agenda announced last week by the Democratic Party leadership is certainly better than the prevaling Republican agenda, this so-called "New"Agenda is still far too thin on both new direction and imagination to provide the inspiration and confidence many voters desire in 2006.

The main problem for Democrats, if they want to win back control of Congress this November, is to reignite the political imagination of the American people, and then provide the kind of political vision and policy framework that can convince voters that the Democratic Party actually understands what it means to offer a new political direction for the country.

An authentic "new direction" for the country must involve at least as much of a change in political vision and policy approach as that embodied by Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" in the 1930s. As the election of 2004 so terribly proved, it is not enough to criticize and point out how wrong and harmful to the country the dominant Republican Agenda has been--

The Republican Party achieved its current political position by capturing the political vision of many voters, and by convincing voters that Republicans offered a specific strategy for bringing that vision to fruition in political reality. Sadly, Republicans have been largely successful in doing exactly that, and we have witnessed the tragic consequences of this success. But realizing and denouncing what is wrong with the Republican Agenda is not enough to change the country's direction.

It is also not enough to offer a piecemeal list of Democratic policy positions, and call it a "New Direction." While the specific points listed in last week's Agenda are ok, such a laundry list cannot by itself constitute a "New Direction."

"Without Vision, the People Perish." As this great democratic proverb suggests, and history demonstrates, no democratic political movement can be successful without a clear vision to inspire and guide the creative and collective action of political engagement and policymaking.

If the Democratic Party wants to regain political initiative in this country, and win back to its side this November the kind of democratic majority necessary to begin to govern for the common good, and oppose the destructive course of the Republican Party, it must demonstrate to the American People in the coming months that it has an inspiring vision to offer--a vision of governance and the common good that will convince Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters that their own best interests, as well as the future of this country, depend on their coming out to vote this year for an authentic and clear new political direction.

Short of offering new vision and inspiration, the Democrats may begin to win back some Congressional seats this fall, but they will not be able to renew the political power and confidence of the American people, which is now so desperately needed to allow the people of this country to counter and reverse the destructive direction in which the Republican elite have taken the country.

As a foundation for recreating an inspiring and progressive democratic vision for the country, Pelosi's invocation of the ideal of democratic government begins to strike the right chords:

“Ours must be a government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people.' That means all of the American people. Republicans have made it a government of, by, and for a few of the people. America can do better... With this agenda, Democrats will... put power back where it belongs – in the hands of all the people.”

But if we are to build a truly inspiring democratic political agenda for the future on the firm foundation provided by these opening chords, Democrats must begin to think much more deeply about what it will take to "put power back where it belongs." After the several decades during which the elite of both parties have benefited from allowing power to consolidate itself at the top of the economic spectrum--instead of protecting the democratic interests of the country and of working people--it is no simple or easy task to create a political agenda that will "put power back where it belongs."

If Democratic politicians want to understand what it will take, and what it means, to put power back in the hands of all the people, they will need to begin to listen much more carefully and deeply to what the many community-based social justice and public advocacy organizations created by their constituents have been trying to tell them. They need to begin to listen much more actively to these organized grassroots, rather than to the political consultants and corporations that dominate the Washington DC political sphere. And they need to learn from these grassroots, and begin to think much more creatively about the need to frame a visionary Democratic Agenda for the 21st century that responds to the aspirations and ideas of these grassroots.

Whether or not the Democratic Party is able to rise to the democratic political challenge of this moment in history will depend on whether it can envision and construct an inspiring Democratic Agenda for 2006 and the years to come.

"Without Vision, the People Perish." And as the People perish, so will the country and what remains of the Democratic Party.

As Pelosi said, "America can do better." Indeed, we can and we must....

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Gettelfinger's Legacy--the Epitaph of the UAW?

For recent perspective on responses from UAW workers after last week's UAW conference, see Gregg Shotwell's (UAW Local 2151) essay, "Gettelfinger's Legacy--the Epitaph of the UAW?" on the FutureoftheUnion Blogsite--
The most striking thing about a Gettelfinger speech is how sincerely insincere he can be. You can almost hear the McGuire Sisters harmonizing in the background and wiping schmaltz on their aprons as he screams, “Solidarity! Solidarity! Solidarity Forever!”

The man who perpetuates a self image of frugality and religious devotion shepherds his flock into the sleaziest city in America and condemns corporate extravagance without blinking. The man who evokes the words of Walter Reuther to justify concessions doesn’t acknowledge the passing of Victor Reuther last year. The man who flaunts his work ethic adjourns the convention early just as he did the Bargaining Con four years ago. The man who talks about innovation has one solution for everything: blame the Republicans.

The threat is clear. The plan of action is vague and feeble. Gettelfinger is long on rhetoric, short on tactic, and weak on direct action. Beneath the hoopla and the helium balloons I detected a simmering discontent.

To read more from Shotwell, click here.
To read Gettelfinger's speech to the UAW, click here.

Monday, June 19, 2006

David Sirota on How Big Money Is the Corruption Destroying Our Government and Our Democracy


Trivializing Corruption
By David Sirota


David Sirota is the author of the new book "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government -- And How We Take It Back" (Crown Publishers, May 2006)

As Sirota wrote in a recent essay related to his appearance this weekend on PBS's NOW show "Crude Awakening" on the corrupting influence of the oil industry lobby:

Today, the lifeblood of American politics is money. Candidates must raise enormous sums of private cash to run for office -- sums that the wealthy and corporate interests are only too happy to provide in exchange for legislative favors. We are told by politicians that this system is "the greatest democracy in the world" when, in fact, it is very clearly the same form of bribery that has marked every corrupt regime looked down on by history books.

Money, of course, does not just buy favors -- it makes sure that the concept of corruption is only presented to the public by political leaders as anecdotes about a few bad apples, not a narrative about a broken system. Why? Because an indictment of the pay-to-play system that produced the bad apples could mean structural campaign finance reforms that challenge the power of the Big Money interests that underwrite our politicians. Thus, in the aftermath of recent congressional scandals, all we get is a pathetical discussion about weak lobbying "reform" proposals and even weaker sanctions against individual lawmakers.

Such narrowing of our political discourse is the most nefarious form of corruption of all. It shows how we now live in a country where the very boundaries of public policy debates are designed to ensure outcomes that never challenge Big Money interests. The truly corrupt interests that own American politics long ago realized that they do not have to pervasively violate our weak anti-corruption laws to get what they want. All they have to do is shower cash on as many lawmakers as possible. These lawmakers, uninterested in biting the hand that feeds them, consequently make sure the overall debate is rigged.

To read more from David Sirota, click here.

Friday, June 16, 2006

To Save American Auto Jobs, Workers Need to Take Leadership of the Future of the US Auto Industry

It is ironic that the UAW has this week decided more or less meekly to cooperate with the US car industry's plans to put hundreds of thousands of auto workers out of jobs, without demanding anything substantial in return for this downward spiral of continual sacrifice from auto workers. The UAW seems unwilling to challenge the fundamental logic governing the decline of the American auto industry. In fact, it seems content, while its workers suffer, to leave in place the very governing structure and policies that are driving the American car industry into extinction.

Workers are literally being "bought out" of their jobs, so that the failed industry leadership that has brought about this bankrupt situation can remain in place. Under this failed management, with its strategy of resistance to true innovation and its continuing addiction to an oil-based economy, there may be no US-owned auto industry surviving by 2020.

While Toyota and Honda continue to take over more market share from US auto companies, the US auto industry and governmental policymakers seem largely incapable of learning from the terrible mistakes of the last decade, and instead persist in defending energy-inefficient and environmentally-destructive technologies, at the cost of the loss of hundreds of thousands of the best industrial jobs in the United States. While the workers continue to lose from this strategy, and are asked to sacrifice even more, what are they getting in return for their sacrifice?

Meanwhile, the new film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" reveals the extent to which the auto industry, and GM in particular, has been guilty of destroying alternative technology cars that over the last decade could have have made the US car industry the world leader in fuel-efficient and clean energy technologies. Instead of moving in this direction, which was the path to growth, innovation, and leadership in environmentally conscious and energy-efficient transportation technologies in the 1990s, GM and the entire automobile industry collaborated in destroying its own investment in electric technologies, and decided to invest in Hummers and SUVs!

As the film's informative website timeline notes, by 2000 GM had finalized its purchase of the Hummer brand name, and in 2001 began to lay off its electric vehicle (EV1) sales team, "starting with its most successful sales specialists." So much for rewarding success!

Far from rewarding successful innovation, GM could not have indicated any more clearly that its strategy for the early years of the 21st century was to betray innovation in order to preserve a commitment to gas-guzzling and inefficient vehicles (the bigger the better)--all in the name of simply following "consumer demand."

Question: How can GM claim to follow consumer demand, when it kills off alternative technology vehicles even as consumers are beginning to demand them? This is the fundamental challenge all consumers and employees of the American car industry should now be asking the heads of the Big 3.

Recent sales figures have made clear that US auto companies are continuing to lose market share to Toyota and Honda because both these companies have been much better at responding to (and honoring) consumer demand by developing much more fuel-efficient hybrid cars (that already yield up to 50-60 mpg). GM could by now have been offering much better than this, but instead it chose to deliberately destroy its entire electric car fleet over the last 5 years. Did the GM workers now being put out of their jobs have any say in these decisions? Shouldn't the people who did have a say in these decisions be the ones losing their jobs?

While it may be too late for the many workers losing their jobs because of the terribly shortsighted thinking that dominates the US car industry, those workers who remain should now (in honor of their departing colleagues, as well as to protect their own jobs) begin to demand something more substantial from their employers and managers. Since the management of the industry has proven that it lacks the kind of vision that can nurture the future growth of the US auto industry, the workers should demand, in return for their many wage concessions, that they now be made a fundamental part of the decision-making process about the future direction of the industry.

If workers are going to be made to suffer for the terrible failures of management and leadership over the last decade, they should now at minimum be allowed to participate more directly in this leadership in order to change its direction. And then they should use their leadership power to demand that the industry immediately transform its strategy, and reinvest in the development of the kind of fuel efficient and technologically innovative automobiles that will lead the industry into the future.

If the US auto manufacturers do not quickly transform themselves to offer the fuel-efficient and innovative technologies consumers will be ever more aggressively demanding in the next decade, Toyota and Honda will continue to win dominance over the auto market, and the next decade may witness the virtual extinction of US automobile manufacturers. Like the dinosaurs that could not adjust quickly enough to a new environment, the US auto industry may not have the vision or managing intelligence needed to survive into the mid-twenty-first century.

If the remaining US auto employees are going to be forced to yield all kinds of concessions in order to hang on to their jobs, they should at least get something substantial in return for those concessions: more direct power and voice in the governance of the corporations for which they are being asked to sacrifice. Since the managers of the last decade have proven themselves perpetually incapable of investing in a strategy that would have saved these jobs, the future of the US car industry will depend on the workers taking more direct control of this industry, and substituting their strategic vision, tied to the future, for the vision of the failed management still tied to the oil-addicted past.

Now, especially, the remaining employees of the Big 3 ought to begin demanding that their employers adopt more visionary leadership in developing and bringing back on line the innovative alternative technologies that they deliberately "deep-sixed," at the terrible cost of the loss of industry leadership and of so many American jobs over the last decade.

When will the UAW's leadership, and the Auto industry's managers, wake up to and admit the serious failures of policy and leadership within the industry over the last decade, and begin to learn from the terrible mistakes of the past? When will the industry's workers stop trusting in this failed leadership, and begin to demand a new kind of leadership and investment in the US car industry that will grow, rather than continue to sacrifice, workers' jobs?

Right now the only people paying for the failures of industry leadership are American auto workers. It is time for the auto workers themselves to unite to demand that the US auto industry take up a new vision, and pursue a new energy-efficient and innovative course into the future, such as that suggested by the Apollo Alliance, our nation's real Apollo Project for the next decade.

Whether or not there is any US car industry left by 2020 will depend on whether the industry's workers, along with all the citizen-consumers of the nation, can unite to demand that the industry reject the failed policies and leadership of the past, and take up new leadership to grow the automobile jobs of the future. Now more than ever it is time for the auto workers of the world to unite to demand such change, since we have everything to lose (our jobs, the environment, a sustainable future) if we fail to bring about such change.

Friday, June 02, 2006

INCONVENIENT TRUTHS: While Real Problems Burn to Be Addressed, Congress Fiddles with Discriminatory Legislation

While the U.S. and the World Burn for Dramatic Policy Change in Washington on crisis issues such as Global Warming, the Conduct of the War in Iraq, increased Fuel Economy Standards, Human Rights, and Equality in Health, our Congress is playing around with the idea of writing discrimination into the US Constitution, which would incoporate discriminatory principles--destructive of human rights and health--into the fundamental structures of US law for decades to come.

While Europe moves forward, will the United States become the symbol of regression and backwardness on all the major issues of human justice, rights, and health in the twenty-first century--a symbol of shame when the history of the twenty-first century is written?

Instead of defending progress in human rights, environmental protection, real human security, and human health, policymaking in the United States has become an example of some of the most retrograde, backwards, and shortsighted lawmaking in the world.

What will it take to change this reality and lack of policy vision on the ground of Washington DC?

We need a revolution in citizen involvement in policy activism to make sure the November 2006 election does not merely change the dominant party in Congress, but begins to achieve fundamental changes in the policy that governs this nation and determines how it behaves in the world, no matter what party rules in Washington.

If the people of the United States want to make sure their government behaves in ways we can be proud of in the world, we need to make sure the November election puts into place people who are going to fight for policies that will represent the interests of all the people of the United States, and not merely of the wealthy and discrimanotory minorities that continue to speak in our name while betraying all the best values that the people of the United States once represented to the rest of the world.

Every Day, from now to the November Elections, ACT FOR CHANGE in the Policies, not just the politicians, that govern this nation--

From ActForChange.Com:

We haven't seen such a misplaced set of priorities in a very long time. Civil war rages in Iraq. The national debt continues to skyrocket. Tens of millions of Americans lack health care, and good jobs are disappearing every day. But conservatives in the Senate think it's urgent to...write discrimination into our constitution, and hand another gigantic tax break over to the wealthiest Americans.

What in the world are they thinking? Tell your elected representatives in Congress to begin thinking, and to:

1. Stop The Trillion-Dollar Tax Giveaway to the Rich

As if previous tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy weren't enough, conservatives in the Senate are pushing to permanently repeal the estate tax -- a move that will cost $1 trillion over ten years, and benefit only the top one-half of one percent. The national birth tax is now at $28,000 per baby; do the rich really need another huge tax break right now?

Take action -- tell the Senate to reject any changes to the estate tax. Click here


2. Don't Write Discrimination Into Our Constitution

The "Federal Marriage Amendment" would make gays and lesbians second-class citizens by forever banning marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships between same-sex couples. They know they don't have the votes to pass it. But Senator Frist still needs to throw some red meat to his conservative base in this election year. Even First Lady Laura Bush said, "I don't think [the Federal Marriage Amendment] should be used as a campaign tool, obviously."

While the religious right might wish otherwise, our society is in fact founded upon the principle of equal rights for all people -- not just heterosexual ones.

Take action -- tell the Senate to toss this bill on the trash heap of history where it belongs. Click here

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Call for Legislators to Require Greater Fuel Efficiency Standards for the US

The single best way to immediately begin to save the U.S. millions of barrels of oil each day is to significantly increase national fuel economy (CAFE) standards in automobiles. Yet most of the media and political hype over "kicking the oil habit" and Congressional policy change to achieve energy security seems to be constructed to divert attention from this single most important point. An excellent 2005 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists labeled this kind of deceptive hype the "Fuel Economy Fraud."

The high price of gasoline has recently spawned deceptive campaigns and news hype about "alternatives" to deliver future energy security to the nation. But any such "campaign" that does not make achieving dramatic improvements in overall fuel economy standards (to 40 mpg over the next decade) is shortsighted and dumb, at best, and an intentionally deceptive "alternative," at worst.

As the Union of Concerned Scientists pointed out over a month ago, the President's recent "call" for "Fuel Economy Reform" demonstrates how deceptive play with words is being substituted for real policy reform to achieve significant improvements in fuel economy standards for the nation.

April 28, 2006
President’s Call for Fuel Economy Reform Merits a Barrel of Skepticism

Statement by David Friedman, Research Director, Clean Vehicles Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

"After 9/11, two devastating hurricanes and record gasoline prices, we should expect real political leadership on fuel economy. Unfortunately, this just seems like an attempt to play pre-election politics with gasoline prices.

"Real leadership from the president and Congress would be to increase the fuel economy of all cars and light trucks to 40 miles per gallon over the next decade. This would be the equivalent of offering a $600 annual tax break from reduced fuel costs.

"Unfortunately, the president's plan would change the fuel economy system from having one standard for all cars to having lower standards for bigger vehicles, creating a loophole that will encourage manufacturers to produce bigger, less efficient cars. The drop in the bucket savings from the fuel economy increase would drain right through the loophole."


Meanwhile, even the usually progressive Center for American Progress has launched a "KicktheOilHabit" campaign that fails to emphasize the primary importance of demanding that Congress act to require greater fuel economy standards.

If citizens demand that both the media and politicians pay notice to the basic points about fuel economy standards clearly explained by the State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), perhaps we will finally begin to make some progress toward real (rather than the facade of) energy security, and toward real political leadership on energy policy.

For great clarification of what is at stake in debate over Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards,
see Fuel Economy Standards: Myth And Fact

More blogs about policybusters.