Oily politicians living in a greenhouse

Politicians can only be trusted as far as one can throw them. And that's not far at all. Just one day after President Bush signed a declawed version of an energy bill that will force automakers to make more use of the evermore-expensive gas going into cars, the Environmental Protection Agency shot down a chance for 17 states that actually want to stop adding to global warming.

Given that the Bush Administration is awash in oil, it's not all that surprising: Bush, a failed Texas oilman whose family is tied to the royal Saudi family; Condi Rice, former director for Chevron; and Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton. Bush threatened to veto the energy bill if Democrats didn't send the bill to the dentist for a major root canal. Big Oil had the same prognosis.

Part of what was scrapped from the bill would have taxed the oil and gas industry to help fund renewable energy research and forced utility companies to have 15 percent of their energy coming from renewable sources.

The United States is a star when it comes to energy and emissions. It won first place in 2006 for devouring the most amount of oil in the world (20.6 million barrels a day), almost three times as much as the next country, China. The United States did lose its first place standing for world's leading polluter to China, picking up the silver metal.

With bedfellows like the auto, oil and gas industry, the U.S. may yet be able to get that gold metal in pollution back from China. But it's going to take more whining from industry about any attempt by any part of the U.S to curb greenhouse gas emissions. It was reported that Chrysler is leading the push to block the EPA from making fuel efficiency standards stricter. And it worked.

While one small bittersweet victory in the fight against U.S. oil addiction and global warming was won, another more important battle was lost. A 2004 California bill wanted to force automakers to reduce car emissions by 30 percent by 2016, starting with the 2009 models. In order to enact the law, the EPA had to grant a wavier to allow California to pollute less. The decision came two years after California asked for it and after the state sued the EPA in November.

The EPA denied the request. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson provides the groundbreaking reason in a statement:

"The Bush Administration is moving forward with a clear national solution - not a confusing patchwork of state rules."

This wouldn't be as funny if that gutted energy bill wasn't signed into law the day before. Even funnier is how much Johnson echoes what General Motors said in a statement when the EPA ruled against the states. In short, it said without a "patchwork of state-specific regulations that would divert our resources," it could research better technology. Interesting. Maybe Johnson was reading from General Motors' press release when he gave his reason for denying the waiver. General Motors was ranked number 3 in the Fortune 500 for 2006, and donated $1.6 million to Republican politicians since Bush has been in office - almost twice what it gives to Democrats.

This whole sad episode of Big Business and Uncle Sam is strange from the start. Shouldn't it work the other way around, where the EPA should be suing states to make stricter rules. This is the logic of the American political system, and for 17 states, a major drawback to do what most of the world is trying to do, fight global warming.

There are other states that want to follow in California's green footsteps: Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Florida. Iowa wants to join the bandwagon as well.

Where California killed the electric car, the EPA killed better controls on pollution. Cough. But the battle isn't over yet. California, and the other states, could appeal to the courts. They could also wait until Bush leaves office and hope a more green-minded, less oily president takes charge. The rest of the world is probably hoping for the same thing.

Photo taken from i.treehugger.com.