http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/opinion/16BKEN.html?ex=1046373579&ei=1&en=
b428623f79af1abe 

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

A Bad Element
By ROBERT F. KENNEDY Jr.

Here's why the environmental community isn't ecstatic over President Bush's
call to spend more than $1 billion over five years to develop a
hydrogen-powered car to wean us from our addiction to Middle East oil.

Certainly, fuel cells that use renewable resources like wind and solar power
to extract hydrogen from water promise America a safe, clean energy
solution. However, in a sop to the energy industry, the White House wants to
extract hydrogen instead from coal and natural gas (without controlling
carbon emissions), thereby increasing global warming and fouling our
landscape. Worse, the president wants to build a new generation of nuclear
power plants specifically for hydrogen production.

The president's hydrogen plan will further reduce our national commitment to
renewables by cutting our already anemic financing for research into wind,
solar and other energy-saving technologies.

Fuel cells offer bright prospects but it will be 10 to 20 years before
economical hydrogen vehicles are on the road. Meanwhile, Americans are
buying 17 million new cars, trucks and S.U.V.'s a year ‹ vehicles that could
be much more fuel efficient. It's no secret that right now we have the
technology to make cars that get better mileage and pollute less. But the
administration has repeatedly scuttled efforts to put these innovations in
place, fighting tougher fuel economy standards for all vehicles, refusing to
compel S.U.V.'s to meet the same mileage standards as cars and creating tax
incentives for Americans to buy the largest gas guzzlers. Last week, in an
astonishing move, government lawyers joined General Motors and
DaimlerChrysler in a federal lawsuit challenging a California law that
rewards carmakers for selling low-emission, gasoline-electric hybrid
vehicles.

Hybrids are just one of the proven technologies that could start saving oil
right now. They can increase fuel economy 50 percent, and never need
plugging in. Other technologies that can lift fuel economy include more
advanced transmissions; improved engine and valve train design; and tires
that promote fuel-efficiency. Available now, these solutions won't be widely
used until Washington gets serious about the arithmetic of oil security: we
use a quarter of the world's oil, yet we have only 3 percent of the known
reserves. 

Requiring cars to average 40 miles per gallon by 2012 would save nearly 2
million barrels a day; that's more than we imported from Saudi Arabia last
year, and three times our Iraq imports. Raise that to 55 miles per gallon by
2020, and daily savings grow to nearly 5 million barrels, almost twice our
current Persian Gulf imports.

We have an oil security problem and we have an air pollution problem. We
also have the technology to fix these problems ‹ if only we would have the
will to use it. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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