Since Bush/Cheney have been in office, we've had to witness their cavalier dismissals of anything resembling legislation towards energy conservation. Rather, they've urged and endorsed a single-note message: use even more oil.

With Katrina, we saw 10% of U.S. refiners shut down, with half of the 10% comprised of just four refineries. Bush then instructs refiners to run at 100% capacity and skip maintenance, in an effort to make up for the short fall. BUT, such breakneck production will likely lead to dangerous outcomes (accidents, equip. failure, etc.) and even more supply disruption.

It's very obvious that our dependence on oil is a huge and growing problem, esp. with little if any push from our top leaders to conserve and invest in alternatives. The longer we wait and postpone the inevitable need to diversify our energy needs away from oil, the more vulnerable we are as a nation to destructive forces out of our control -- whether it be terrorist acts or natural disasters.

It wouldn't require as much sacrifices as Cheney et al would have us believe. Technology is already available to help in this regard; it's just not being used. Look at the hybrid cars -- why did they just "suddenly" appear? Do you think Toyota and/or Honda locked some engineers in a room and ordered them to crank out a hybrid for their release? No, the technology was 95% already there, it just took gas rising a bit (again, hybrids pre-date $3 gas by at least a year) and the typically ingenious Japanese to realize a market existed for "green" consumers. All of this with zero help from Bush/Cheney or the U.S. auto companies.

Again, to stay solely entrenched with oil as prime energy source will increasingly be shown to be not just foolhardy (given its diminishing supply) and reckless (given global warming), but also a grave national security threat.

In the end, what we have is just another example of GW's #1 priority: reward cronies, and the future of the country be damned. When has he ever done anything good for the country that didn't have a special interest or contributor on the other side, hand fully extended?