February 6, 2003
As President Bush pushes his hydrogen and fuel cell plan, recent actions by some of his corporate allies suggest that the White House's initiative is merely an attempt to distract the media from Bush's woeful environmental record.
On February 5, ExxonMobil held a closed-door lobbying briefing for some House staffers. According to a source present at the meeting, ExxonMobil representatives said they would be working closely with the president on his hydrogen initiative.
But during the briefing, they also reported that fossil fuels would be an increasingly dominant energy source over the next 20 years, and they cautioned that hydrogen fuel cells would not only be more expensive but could be worse for the environment than gasoline-powered vehicles. During the presentation, one ExxonMobil representative allegedly displayed a photograph of a hydrogen explosion at a refinery to illustrate the safety problems with the fuel source.
While ExxonMobil publicly bills itself to be working on ways to clean up the air and lessen oil dependence, the energy giant is also telling Congress that hydrogen is a bad idea. As such, the company appears to endorse the notion of gasoline-based fuel cells -- using gasoline as a fuel, then converting that to be used by a fuel cell engine by equipment on the car itself or at a gas pump -- but its actions suggest it aims to suppress rapid development of alternative energy. Does the president share that view, and is this all just part of a larger, elaborate hustle to head off tougher fuel economy standards?
More evidence of corporate duplicity is a letter written to President Bush from the National Mining Association's president and CEO Jack N. Gerard, in which he expressed his support for the president's hydrogen initiative. He wrote that "coal -- reliable, abundant, affordable and domestic -- can be the source for much of this new hydrogen-powered fuel..." presumably because some federal "fuel cell" money flows to coal. But while the NMA applauds Bush's commitment to hydrogen energy, it is working behind the curtains to delay any meaningful progress on the initiative.
The association's director of air quality issues, John Shanahan, was chosen by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) to head air pollution-related issues for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. There aren't many members of Congress as hostile to environmental policies as Inhofe. And, of course, NMA president Gerard trumpeted Shanahan's appointment as "significant progress" towards the mining industry gaining greater clout on Capitol Hill.
Shanahan has been part of an Environmental Protection Agency working group studying new mercury standards, and is known as an adamant opponent of tough new controls on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants.
His appointment not only indicates that Inhofe will help the coal industry, but it confirms reports that the White House -- in conjunction with the mining and electric power industries and key members of Congress such as Inhofe and Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) -- will work to delay meaningful controls on mercury pollution for as long as possible, as Congress reviews the President's plan for air pollution.
So, despite all the rhetoric about hydrogen, coal and oil are poised politically to remain on top.
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