Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

Bush's 'clean fuel' move may cause more harm, say environmentalists

"There is no revolution in global warming policy in anything the President is proposing, no matter how the White House tries to spin it," said Philip Clapp, the president of the National Environmental Trust. " The numbers are calculated to sound big and impressive but the President is being just as intransigent on global warming as he is on Iraq, ignoring Congress, major business leaders, and the public, who have called for action. "

He added: "The President's proposals will contribute almost nothing to stopping global warming. They will allow our carbon emissions to grow by 14 per cent over the next 10 years."

Others welcomed Mr Bush's acknowledgment of the threat of global warming but warned that some of his proposals could do more harm than good.

"'Wrongheaded approaches would prove counter-productive - we could end up with somewhat more efficient vehicles running on much dirtier fuels that further accelerate global warming,' said Frances Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defence Council. 'Turning coal into liquid transportation fuel, for instance, would generate nearly twice the amount of global-warming pollution that today's petroleum-based fuels do."