“Watch what we do, not we say,” Attorney General John N. Mitchell accurately warned at the dawn of the Nixon administration. This could also be a fitting epitaph for President Bush’s energy policies. Despite frequent claims of support for renewable energy over the years, the record shows consistent opposition to efforts to spur investments in clean wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources.

The subterfuge began when President Bush announced his administration’s National Energy Policy on May 17, 2001. The White House’s plan was based on recommendations provided to Vice President Cheney from coal, oil, nuclear and other dirty energy companies. The speech included a soothing nod to renewable electricity–five weeks after the administration proposed slashing millions from renewable energy programs.

The routine has varied little since Bush first took office. President Bush pays lip service to clean energy technologies while opposing many voluntary incentives and other efforts to promote these very same technologies. Often, these events occur only days apart.

Another attempt at sleight of hand will occur tomorrow, when President Bush addresses the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference on Wednesday, March 5. This speech comes just seven days after the administration opposed House passage of the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act, H.R. 5351. This bill would extend tax credits to encourage producers and homeowners to employ wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy technologies. Without an extension, an estimated 116,000 construction workers and other employees will lose their jobs.

President Bush will no doubt use his speech to extol the virtues of clean energy technology incentives even while he prepares to wield his veto pen to stop legislation that would do just that. This will only be one event in a long string of Bush rhetoric that doesn’t match reality.

What Bush Said
“The plan …expands and diversifies America’s supply of all sources of energy–oil and gas, clean coal, solar, wind, biomass, hydropower and other renewables, as well as safe and clean nuclear power”
Remarks to Capital City Partnership, St. Paul, Minnesota, May 17, 2001

What Bush Did
Only seven of the 105 recommendation in the National Energy Policy Report concern renewable energy. National Energy Policy report, May 17, 2001.

“The [energy] plan does little for efficiency or renewable energy.” New York Times, May 18, 2001

“I hope some day that these renewables will be the dominant source of energy in America. I’m not so sure how realistic that is.” President Bush, New York Times, May 19, 2001

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The brutal drought has ended over large parts of Australia — and consumers are obsessively reducing their demand for water — and yet water “prices are set to double in the next five to 10 years,” Water Services Association Australia executive officer Ross Young told a drought briefing in Canberra.

The focus on water conservation has never been higher:

Water is a dinner table topic. People are quite passionate about water and they are quite concerned about water in the context of climate change.

And the results are impressive:

Average daily summer water use in Melbourne during the 1990s was 1,631 litres, compared with 1,092 litres at the end of last month.

But doubled prices are still inevitable in the coming years, “as the industry funds the significant capital works programs – some $30 billion over the next five to 10 years just in new water sources for urban Australia.”

Since scientists tell us we’re turning the west into a desert, much greater water conservation, tens of billions of dollars on water infrastructure, and much higher water prices are also inevitable there.

• Dry me a River: Climate change and drought
• Australia faces the “permanent dry” — as do we
• Warming Will Worsen Water Wars
• 2007: A record-setting U.S. drought year
• And the drought goes on
• Brutal Drought Where It’s Normally Wet
• Global Warming Imperils 4th of July
• Los Angeles: Worst Drought Ever Recorded
• USA Today Almost Gets the Drought Story Right
• The NY Times Blows the Drought Story, too.