Never think you would hear an oil man urging conservation? If you listened to or watched President Bush’s State of the Union address tonight, you might not have believed your ears.
During his speech, President Bush asked his fellow Americans to reduce their gasoline consumption by nearly 20% over the next decade. This reduction would come from people driving more fuel efficient vehicles as well as a push for wider use of alternative fuels such as ethanol and hydrogen.
It appears that this objective will serve two goals – to help reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil as well as helping to reduce America’s carbon emissions (although he’d probably never admit the second point).
In order to help advance alternative fuel technologies, it is expected that President Bush will ask Congress to enact legislation that will require more and more of these alternative fuels to be added to gasoline. The logic behind this being if these alternatives fuels are required more investment money pumped into these fuels.
Unfortunately, since these State of the Union addresses tend to be filled with nothing but hot air and political rhetoric more than likely nothing will come of the President’s comments. But, if this does stick, it would certainly be great to see.