AmbitiousW Plan Undone by Energy Politics (Times LizB/Jeff Gerth praise W)

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/20/politics/20ENER.html

Ambitious Bush Plan Undone by Energy Politics
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JEFF GERTH


ASHINGTON, Aug. 19 — President Bush stood at a gasoline station near his ranch in Texas today and said he had been calling for an energy bill to modernize the nation's electricity grid "for a long time."
Mr. Bush is quite right. A comprehensive energy policy was part of his platform as a candidate for president and seemed prescient from his very first week in office, when he was forced to ensure there was enough power in California to ease the state's rolling blackouts. By May 2001, largely because of the California crisis, Mr. Bush had released his energy plan.But the president's ambitious policy quickly became a casualty of energy politics and, notably, harsh criticism from Democrats enraged by the way the White House had created the plan. Although the policy included recommendations to improve the nation's electric grid that everyone agreed on, they were lost in the shouting and have been dormant in Congress for the past two years.

Since last week's blackout, those proposals have again taken on new urgency, and Mr. Bush, like other politicians, has been compelled to speak out. This morning, he told reporters that he was assured on Monday night by Congressional Republicans that a conference committee would begin work within 20 days on a final package of energy legislation. "Now is the time for the Congress to move and get something done," the president said.Mr. Bush first outlined the details of a wide-ranging energy plan during his presidential campaign in September 2000, in Saginaw, Mich., when he called for more domestic fuel production, better relations with foreign oil suppliers and the opening of 19 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in northeastern Alaska, for oil exploration. The plan also called for the production of more electricity to meet demand, but that part of it received little notice. Most of the attention was focused on the uproar by environmentalists over Mr. Bush's proposal to drill in the wildlife refuge, referred to in Washington shorthand as ANWR.

That focus shifted by the time Mr. Bush became president, when California's blackouts were shaking the world's energy industry and developing into a political and economic crisis. On his third day in office, after promising that he would not intervene, Mr. Bush agreed to extend for two weeks federal orders ensuring that California would not be left in the dark. But his administration warned that it was a short-term fix and that it would move ahead with an energy plan to solve problems like those in California over the long term.
"The president used that issue, the crisis in California, to highlight the need for a comprehensive energy policy," said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who was the secretary of energy under President Bill Clinton.The issue was considered so important that Vice President Dick Cheney was put in charge of a task force to draft the plan.Four months later, the task force produced the National Energy Policy Report, which in large part mirrored Mr. Bush's energy plan when he was a candidate. Although one of the driving forces for the report was by then gone — California's blackouts had eased — Chapter 7 called for improvements to the nation's power grid, and specifically recommended federal standards for electricity reliability on the nation's utilities. But as before, most of the attention was focused on the criticism over Mr. Bush's call for new drilling.

Democrats also criticized the methods of the task force itself....Democrats and environmentalists vigorously attacked the meetings as evidence that the administration was relying too heavily on advice from people in the energy industry. And although administration officials just as vigorously responded that the task force did not give in to the wish lists of the industry, they also acknowledged that the criticism had a political impact and turned the energy debate into one about the methods of the task force, not its findings.<snip>

(and nothing about the 3 times GOP voted down by party line the 2001 Dem bill to simply improve the grid - and not much about how the GOP will not split the bill into one bill of what everyone agrees is needed - and another bill that rapes Alaska - because would mean the rape of Alaska might not pass - there is a statement that Bush may have to separate Alaska out of bill - but it will be hard for him - not that ELISABETH BUMILLER and JEFF GERTH are right wing neo-con Bush ass kissers - the NY Times is a liberal left wing paper after all)

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1. "plan ... for the production of more electricity "-Oversupply now w/o plan

We have an oversupply now w/o plan - just cannot transport it -as in grid - because two few lines means when one goes down, others overheat from excess load-

Are Time reporters forbidden from thinking - espicially if the thought might not increase Bush poll numbers?