Bush’s Alternative Energy Flip-Flop

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Bush’s Alternative Energy Flip-Flop
By The Editorial Board

The White House has raised several objections to the breakthrough energy bill recently negotiated by House leaders. But there’s an interesting and ironic backstory to one of these complaints.

In a dyspeptic letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Allan Hubbard, the director of the White House national economic council, states that Mr. Bush is particularly unhappy with the bill’s Renewable Electricity Standard — a provision that would require states to produce 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2020. The provision, Mr. Hubbard says, is “overly prescriptive” and would hurt consumers.

What the letter does not say, and what the White House would rather we not remember, is that as governor of Texas, Mr. Bush enthusiastically signed into law a renewable electricity mandate that was part of a broader bill encouraging deregulation and greater competition in the utility industry.

This 1999 mandate was extraordinarily forward-looking for its time (22 states have such mandates now) and the results were immediate. Texas now produces more wind power than any other state, to the great benefit of consumers of electricity and farmers who rent out their land for the giant turbines that create the power. Texas actually accounted for more than half the new wind energy installed nationwide this year.

more:http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/bushs-alternative-energy-flip-flop/?hp