More Talk, Less Action!

On Monday, President Bush gave a speech in the Rose Garden about reducing gasoline use in this country. Funny how "it's important the president hear from all sides on this in a reasoned and deliberative fashion," according to Bob Greco of the American Petroleum Institute, in this interview from Marketplace on American Public Media. Considering all sides, thinking things through, and moving cautiously have never seemed to be priorities for President Bush before.

Lots of gems on the speech in this piece by CNN Student News. A few years ago, you'd rarely hear this kind of criticism of the president on CNN. But now that he's an unpopular president, they're all over it. My how CNN has changed its tack.

(CNN Student News) -- May 15, 2007

Transcript

First Up: Fuel-Saving Drive

ELIAS: First up today, President Bush is looking for ways to help the environment. He wants new rules for fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions in place by the time he leaves office in January 2009. So he's ordering several agencies to start working on the plans to make it happen. CNN's Ed Henry was at the White House for the president's announcement Monday, and he talked to Wolf Blitzer about it afterward.

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ED HENRY, CNN REPORTER: Clearly there's a legal reason: the Supreme Court ruling last month that the federal government has to regulate these greenhouse gases. But clearly also a political reason: the White House nervous about the fact that the national average for gasoline has now climbed above $3 per gallon. Also in some areas it's climbing up close to $4 a gallon. That's worrisome. But it sounded like more talk from the president today in the Rose Garden, really no new action.

The president signing an executive order that merely directs the relevant cabinet secretaries to take the "first steps" towards reducing gasoline consumption, but actually not doing anything to reduce that consumption. The president kept using the word "action" in the Rose Garden, as if that would make it seem like there was some new action. But his own press secretary Tony Snow admitted that in the short term, this will do nothing to help consumers.

U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The American people expect common sense and they expect action. The policies I've laid out have got a lot of common sense to them. It makes sense to do what I proposed, and we're taking action by taking the first steps toward rules that will make our economy stronger, our environment cleaner and our nation more secure for generations to come.

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No, it's not going to have an immediate effect. On the other hand, if you take a look at what the president has been proposing for a long time, this president had proposed an energy policy upon taking office and it took years to get Congress to act on it.

HENRY: Now, the White House clearly trying to shift the blame to Congress there. But up until January of course it was a Republican Congress, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: So what's the chance, what's the likelihood that Congress will pass legislation that the president will sign into law that will have a significant impact?

HENRY: Well, very little chance right now. The president saying today that he's directing his cabinet secretaries to use as a starting point his 20-in-10 plan. That's the plan to cut federal consumption by 20 percent in the next 10 years. When you know, he unveiled it in January in his State of the Union, the last four months there has been very little action. Something to pay attention to: The president in the Rose Garden today said he wants his cabinet secretaries to deal with this by the end of 2008 in terms of the legal maneuvering and what not. What's significant about that? By 2008, the end there, we'll have a new president-elect. So it really looks like he's kicking this to the next administration.

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