Editorial: Empty call to conserve

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005 | 9:05 a.m.

President Bush has decided conservation may not be such bad energy policy after all. In the wake of hurricanes that crippled U.S. oil production along the Gulf Coast, Bush on Monday urged Americans "to maybe not drive on a trip that's not essential."

It's a lip-service turnaround from the man who in 2001 appointed Vice President Dick Cheney to head a White House task force charged with developing a national energy policy. In response to critics who at the time accused the administration of slighting conservation, Cheney said, "To speak exclusively of conservation is to duck the tough issues," and added that conservation "is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." The administration said little more about conservation until Monday, when Bush got religion like a death-row inmate and discovered conservation in much the same manner he discovered poverty in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina-- against a backdrop of plummeting public approval ratings.

Bush doesn't seem to know any more about conservation than he does about being poor. While ordering federal employees to curtail jet travel to conserve fuel, the president was jetting over the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast for more photo ops. While asking Americans to tighten their personal energy belts for the future, his administration is working to loosen energy and conservation policies.

Bush administration policies have made cleanup at oil- and gas-drilling sites voluntary. The White House's proposed changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards would exclude large trucks and such SUVs as gas-hogging Hummers from eased requirements and would classify vehicles by size, rather than weight. A 2-inch change in design could push some models into a less-stringent fuel-economy class.

Bush's conservation epiphany called for increased mass transit use just weeks after he signed a $284 billion transportation bill that includes $225.5 billion for the Federal Highway Administration and just $52.3 billion for the Federal Transit Administration.

The only light Bush saw this week illuminated a public approval rating that hovers at 40 percent -- the lowest of his plodding tenure. It is abundantly clear that an endangered public image is what this former Texas oilman is most interested in conserving.