Energy Bill Madness

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Good catch from the New York Times:

With Congress poised for a final vote on the energy bill, the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision Tuesday to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy.

But a copy of the report, embargoed for publication Wednesday, was sent to The New York Times by a member of the E.P.A. communications staff just minutes before the decision was made to delay it until next week. The contents of the report show that loopholes in American fuel economy regulations have allowed automakers to produce cars and trucks that are significantly less fuel-efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980’s.

Let’s see: cars are getting less and less fuel-efficient as time goes by, the government knows this perfectly well, the country is facing a potential oil shortage in the coming years, gas prices are rising… and Congress now has to decide whether or not to pass a bill that seems to exist solely for the purpose of enriching Tom DeLay’s corporate sponsors. Will it pass? No, really, the suspense is killing me.

For the record, the Center for American Progress has some good ideas as to what a national energy policy should actually look like. Heck, even the Heritage Foundation’s proposal would be better than Congress’ version. A sobering thought.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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