Editorial: Stand together on energy

Saturday, June 16, 2007 | 7:37 a.m.

T he old gag "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it " isn't so funny in this day of rapid climate change. Congress, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is trying to do something about the weather now, but is running into opposition from special interests.

Most scientists agree that reducing greenhouse gases is the only way to slow the global warming that is causing polar ice melts, bringing earlier springs that prolong droughts and threatening more Hurricane Katrinas.

Democrats in the U.S . Senate have supported new energy proposals all week that would cut back on greenhouse gases, but at every turn they are encountering roadblocks.

Logically, it would seem that President Bush would be supporting their call for better fuel economy in cars sold in the United States. This is because he has labeled America as "addicted" to oil and has called for a 20 percent reduction in gasoline consumption by 2017.

But the White House issued a statement this week opposing improved mileage standards. The folks who run General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are standing firm against better mileage in their cars and trucks, and naturally Bush is following their lead.

The other major proposal being pushed by Democratic senators is a bill requiring the nation's utilities to derive 15 percent of their power from non-nuclear renewable sources by 2020. Such renewables account for 2.4 percent of the nation's electricity.

On this one, their Republican colleagues are rising up in force to defeat it, using talking points supplied by the utilities. The theme is that it would be technically impossible and too expensive.

Well, 23 states, including Nevada, have passed mandates for increased percentages of renewable energy sources and the sky isn't falling for them. A minimum national standard shouldn't be that hard to bring about.

On global warming, the theme should be more that of another old saying (by Benjamin Franklin), to wit: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."