Senate Democrats Propose Energy Plan

The New York Times reports that Senate Democrats yesterday proposed energy legislation designed to promote alternate energy sources, encourage energy efficiency and reduce dependence on oil imports by 40% by the year 2020. The bill, called the Clean Energy Development for a Growing Economy (Clean EDGE) initiative, would also roll back the billions in public funds that BushCo's energy monstrosity shovelled in the direction of oil and gas companies.

The strategy draws on a lesson that our MBA president must have slept through: Instead of throwing more money at the mature industry of oil extraction, we should be supporting the development of more efficient vehicles and alternative energy sources.

Senator Tom Carper summed up why we need to change direction:

We can't afford to let the next 20 years look like the last 20 years. That's why it's imperative that we have to take action today to invest more heavily in renewable fuels, increase our production and development of alternative-fuel vehicles and develop new sources of energy.The Republicans have had it their way and look where it got us: record government subsidies, record gasoline prices and record oil industry profits.