Good catch from the New York Times:
With Congress poised for a final vote on the energy bill, the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision Tuesday to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy.
But a copy of the report, embargoed for publication Wednesday, was sent to The New York Times by a member of the E.P.A. communications staff just minutes before the decision was made to delay it until next week. The contents of the report show that loopholes in American fuel economy regulations have allowed automakers to produce cars and trucks that are significantly less fuel-efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980’s.
Let’s see: cars are getting less and less fuel-efficient as time goes by, the government knows this perfectly well, the country is facing a potential oil shortage in the coming years, gas prices are rising… and Congress now has to decide whether or not to pass a bill that seems to exist solely for the purpose of enriching Tom DeLay’s corporate sponsors. Will it pass? No, really, the suspense is killing me.
For the record, the Center for American Progress has some good ideas as to what a national energy policy should actually look like. Heck, even the Heritage Foundation’s proposal would be better than Congress’ version. A sobering thought.
