Senator Dick Lugar, 76 (that’s older than McCain) has made some major left turns here of late.

Now he’s teamed up with Barry Osama Obama.

U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) Friday said that they have introduced comprehensive legislation that will use alternative fuel technologies to greatly decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil.

“For all of our military might and economic dominance, the Achilles’ heel of the most powerful country on Earth is still the oil we cannot live without,” said Obama. “I could give you all plenty of reasons why it’s a good idea for this country to move away from an oil-based economy, but all we really need to know about the danger of our oil addiction comes directly from words spoken by Osama bin Laden: ‘Focus your operations on oil, especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this will cause them to die off [on their own].’”

Obama and Lugar’s bipartisan legislation, the American Fuels Act of 2006 (S. 2446), would take a four-step approach to reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil. First, the legislation would spur investment in alternative fuels by increasing the production of cellulosic biomass ethanol (CBE) to 250 million gallons by 2012. It would also create an Alternative Diesel Standard that will require 2 billion gallons of alternatives diesels be mixed into the 40 billion gallon annual national diesel pool by 2015. This proposal is modeled of the Renewable Fuels Standard, which has proved successful in increasing ethanol production and use.

I’ll grant them that cellulosic biomass ethanol is a good thing because it’s made from straw and other plant waste instead of corn. However, that’s not fixing the fscking problem. Open up drilling in ANWR and in our coastal waters. E85 is NOT going to solve the oil crisis. More oil will.

Second, the legislation would help increase consumer demand for alternative fuels by providing a short-term, 35 cents per gallon tax credit for E85 fuel and by providing automakers with a $100 tax credit for every E85-capable Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) produced.

Who gets the 35 cents?

Third, it would require the U.S. government to lead by example and increase access to alternative fuels by requiring the government to allow public access to alternative fueling stations located on federal government property and by requiring that only clean buses be eligible for federal cost sharing.

There goes Citilink federal subsidies.

Finally, the legislation would create a Director of Energy Security to oversee and keep America focused on its goal of energy independence. The Director of Energy Security would serve as the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, the National Economic Council and the Homeland Security Council.

Yeah, I’m all for that. Let’s create yet another layer of government bureaucracy.

In other Lugar news, he’s the keynote speaker for a bunch of local tree hugging liberals that call themselves Grassroots Green.

Don’t Miss the Local Environmental Event of the Year!
Need to Go Green Conference
It’s all about progress, solutions, and forward movement. Join us to see what a greener northeast Indiana—and world—would look like and find ways to get involved.

And then there’s this: Senator Richard Lugar Drives A Prius - Might Be a TreeHugger

AWB

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Politics, Science, The Radical Left. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.