VP Slams Conservation, Exhorts Nation to Dig and Drill.(Vice Presiden Dick Cheney, energy policy)(Brief Article)(Column)

Preview of Bush energy plan triggers damage-control mode

The Bush administration's struggles on environment and energy thus far are a wonder to observe. Mostly, one wonders what they were thinking. To be charitable, the White House, at the very least, appears to be wrestling with an acute case of political tone deafness.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who is alleged to have been working diligently on a comprehensive policy to deal with the nation's "energy crisis," partially let the cat out of the bag in early May, and scores were less than impressed. Some were angered and outraged.

No one really should have been surprised that the plan is to dig more coal, drill more oil, and fire up more nuclear plants. If that's all there is to it, it's a one-dimensional plan that lacks ambition and imagination and has the all the earmarks of a political blunder.

The most striking thing about Cheney's revelations, however, was not his penchant for drilling. Rather, it's what he left out of his energy plan--and not by omission either. He seems to have gone out of his way, in an apparent blast at environmental critics, to downplay saving energy as a critical ingredient in any energy plan. "Conservation," sniffed Cheney, "may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

We don't recall that anyone, except perhaps the most extreme environmentalists, has been silly enough to propose that conservation by itself would solve the nation's energy supply quandary, so why did Cheney speak so condescendingly? Even those who yearn for a utopia free of fossil fuels are usually rational enough to realize that their dream won't come to pass overnight.

If You're Going to San Francisco ...