it\’s a gas gas gas

i\’m just catching up on last week\’s SOTU coverage. quoth the shrub:

And now even more dramatic advances are within reach. Tonight, I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great goal. Let us build on the work we\’ve done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years.

whaaa? excuse me while i do a triple-take, like i did when i used to eat Triples Cereal. (appropriate kudos to x-entertainment for the clip.)

dubya wants to reduce gasoline usage? are we finally veering away from the \”damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead\” logic that assumes that some scientist figure out a way to get the planet out of this mess in the future? is the administration now acknowledging that many of its past policies– such as tax write-offs for SUV owners– have had a very negative impact on the planet? will we be hearing government ads promoting carpooling, public transportation, and the like?

not really. more shrub:

To reach this goal, we must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 — and that is nearly five times the current target.

hmm. still relying on a yet-unfound scientific solution. yes, yes, there\’s ethanol, but i question its viability. despite its bias, the Wall Street Journal seems right-on in a recent editorial discussing the limitations of corn-based ethanol. technological advances with this and other types of ethanol are possible, of course, but this appears to be another \”wishful thinking\” idea from Bush. oh, there\’s more:

At the same time, we need to reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars the way we did for light trucks — and conserve up to 8.5 billion more gallons of gasoline by 2017.

okay, yes, that\’s ultimately a good thing. understanding, of course, that the cost of such improvements will be passed along directly to the consumer. but if the public needs to step up and cover the cost in order to cut down our consumption of fossil fuels, we may as well– it appears no one else has the appetite to do so.