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President George Bush's proposed remedy for the high price of oil, NBC's John Yang reported, was to "build more refineries and allow drilling in the protected Alaskan wilderness." Why had he not implemented those two policies during his seven years in office? He "spread some of the blame to Congress" for its opposition. ABC's Betsy Stark (embargoed link) consulted her panel of energy experts and they contradicted the President's theory: "It is not Congress but big oil companies--which reported record profits again this week--that have been reluctant to build new refineries." As for the summer holiday for the federal gasoline tax proposed by Presidential candidate John McCain and seconded by Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Bush would not commit," CBS' Jim Axelrod observed. Barack Obama calls the holiday "a gimmick."
That gasoline tax is levied to fund maintenance and improvements to highways. To kick off NBC's Falling Apart series Monday, Kevin Tibbles joined commuter Stacey Rubin for the morning rush hour through potholes towards the Emerald City of Chicago to dramatize an infrastructure in "midlife crisis." Muttered Tibbles to his host: "This ain't the Yellow Brick Road!" "No it ain't." Next Tom Costello boarded a New York bound Acela high speed train in Boston. With "skyrocketing fuel prices, congested highways and air travel gridlock," Amtrak ridership has increased by 11% over the last year. The railroad seeks $1.3bn in extra annual federal funding for the following wish list: extend the northeast corridor from Washington DC to Charlotte NC; add Acela routes in Florida, Texas and California; and turn Chicago into a high-speed hub with spokes to St Louis, Detroit and Cleveland.
Also on NBC, Anne Thompson looked at a component of Bush's energy plan that he has managed to get Congress to pass: the scheme to produce 20bn gallons of ethanol from processed corn by 2015. As early as next year, Thompson reported, fully 32% of the nation's corn harvest will be converted into fuel rather than used for food. She ticked off the adverse consequences: higher feed prices for cattle, chickens and hogs; a shortfall in wheat and soybeans as farmland is converted to corn; rising food prices "sparking consumer discontent here and riots around the world." Ethanol, concluded Thompson, is turning "from a fuel of the future to a political pariah."
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