Monday, May 02, 2005

A New Republican Faction - The Geo-greens

In an excellent article on the "Axis of Oil"; how Senate and White House are still backing oil companies and oil-producing allies like Saudi Arabia, I came across mention of a new center-right faction within the GOP. The tem "geo-green" was coined by by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times to describe this new grouping, which sees Americas reliance on oil as a long term threat to both the economy and to national security.

The most stinging attack came in a recent letter to Mr Bush signed by two dozen politically influential figures organised by the Energy Future Coalition, a lobbying group. These folk, an odd mix of national-security hawks and die-hard greens, argue that “dependence on imported petroleum poses a risk to our homeland security and economic well-being.” These worthies want to see “clean, domestic petroleum substitutes and increased efficiency in our transport system.”

Boyden Gray was one of the signatories to the letter. He was Bush Senior's White House counsel and is still an influential conservative figure.

“I don't even like the word green!” he bristles. It is not greenery but post-September 11th fears that led men like him to join hands with the tree-huggers. In a thinly veiled reference to Saudi Arabia, he explains that he worries about “the corrupting influence of oil receipts that end up in terrorist hands”.

Another signatory was Robert McFarlane, Reagan's national security advisor. He too worries about American dependence on foreign oil.

James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, envisions a geo-green coalition of “tree-huggers, do-gooders, sod busters and cheap hawks” pushing for energy independence. The oddest couple of all—Jerry Taylor of the libertarian Cato Institute and Dan Becker of the deeply verdant Sierra Club—have just issued a joint call for a radically different energy policy: a market-based, “zero subsidy” energy bill.

The Sierra Club and the Cato Institute working together - who thought that would ever happen?

The thing is, Bush and the Senate seem not to have got the message yet. The latest energy bill that Bush said he wants passed by August is stuffed full of pork for oil companies, including a $2 billion giveaway to oil companies for deep-water research. It also includes giveaways for ethanol (a pretty ungreen petrol additive popular with corn farmers) and cheap catastrophic insurance for the nuclear industry. Meanwhile, it does nothing to close a loophole that allows sports-utility vehicles and Hummers to escape fuel-economy standards. The subsidy laden bill is estimated to have a total cost in excess of $90 billion.

Some geo-greens think the energy bill will fall apart. That would, in theory, allow the politicians to redraft a better bill—perhaps even one that included sensible provisions on auto-fuel efficiency, mandatory carbon curbs and so on. A few years ago, such reforms would have found scant support. Now they may find unexpected allies. For instance, the farm lobby is getting gradually more eager to plant windmills instead of profitless crops.

It will be interesting to see if this new faction can muster the political clout to turn the axis of oil onj it's ear.

No comments: