POLITICS AND NATURE

It is a funny thing about the legislative process.......no one is ever happy. 

The media, pundits, politicians from the White House and Congress, and the people at large complained incessantly over the inability to pass any legislation throughout the last year after the Democrats took what is really a very narrow margin of victory in the 2006 mid-term elections. Loud, mad declarations of disgust emanated over the public airwaves over failures of the leadership of Pelosi and Reid and the return of gridlock was the rule of the day.

Then, after months of wrangling and partisan bickering, much of it coming from a White House with a renewed sense of mission relating to fiscal propriety, an energy bill emerged and passed both houses of Congress, including the Senate, which could not get anything done without the threat of filibuster, and no one is happy.

The bill passed raises the cafe standards for the first time in thirty years, creates incentives for green federal buildings, generates proposals advancing the production of more efficient appliances, increases the use of efficient lighting, and builds upon the knowledge of using biofuels to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. In return for Republican congressional and presidential support, the bill keeps subsidies for giant energy corporations.

This is called compromise and it is a critical component of the legislative process. Therefore, no one winds up pleased with the final result because people want cafe standards to be at 50mpg, immediate intervention to incentivize green building at every level, or greater support for existing industries. As George W. Bush said once, it's a tough job....or, it would be much easier if this were a dictatorship.