Letter: Bush energy plan is not enough

Friday, June 15, 2001 | 10:05 a.m.

The public is getting continually harassed by threats of energy shortages and rolling blackouts this summer.

Concomitantly, the Bush administration is providing false hope that something will be done about this mass-imposed hardship. What is the reality?

The Bush program acknowledges that burning coal generates most of our nation's electricity. It then proposes spending $2 billion to reduce pollutants produced by coal-fired plants. Two billion taxpayer dollars wasted, unconstitutionally, on dirty coal plants when clean, safe, efficient nuclear power is available. Talk about shortsighted!

Sad to say, there aren't likely to be any changes or substantial solutions to the nation's energy woes as long as the Earth worshippers and their allies in the Congress are given dignity and clout they don't deserve.

Every president has a "bully pulpit" he can use to give the nation needed truths and sound perspective. He also has the clout within the Congress if he'll use it courageously. This administration even has a vice president whose talents can bolster any presidential effort. But if the two leaders are merely nibbling at the edges of the gathering energy crisis -- which is precisely what the newly announced energy program does -- then it will get worse.

And the cost will be great, even possibly including our nation soon being held hostage by foreign energy suppliers.

FRANK PELTESON