NBC News, CBS News failed to note Bush flip-flop on fuel-efficiency standards
SUMMARY: Both the CBS Evening News and NBC's Nightly News reported that President Bush endorsed a proposal by Senate Republicans to grant the executive branch authority to set fuel-efficiency standards for cars -- a power that currently resides with Congress. CBS and NBC failed to note, however, that this move by Bush represents a significant shift for the White House, which opposed, as recently as February, increasing efficiency standards for passenger cars.
In reporting on the various legislative proposals put forth by members of Congress to address rising gasoline prices, both the CBS Evening News and NBC's Nightly News reported that, on April 27, President Bush endorsed a proposal by Senate Republicans to grant the executive branch authority to set fuel-efficiency standards for cars -- a power that currently resides with Congress. CBS and NBC failed to note, however, that this move by Bush represents a significant shift for the White House, which opposed, as recently as February, increasing efficiency standards for passenger cars.
As The Washington Post reported on April 28:
Congress has the authority to approve changes in mileage standards for passenger cars, and the executive branch can set them for light trucks without approval from Congress. But neither Congress nor the administration has shown much interest in raising passenger car standards, which were set in the 1970s and haven't changed since 1985. In March, the Bush administration said it would raise average fuel economy standards by 1.9 miles a gallon for sport-utility vehicles, pickups and vans for models in 2008 through 2011, a long-awaited move that environmentalists said was too modest.
At a BP gas station in Biloxi, Mississippi, on April 27, Bush said: "Congress is debating some other ideas. And one idea is to give me a capacity to raise CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Economy] standards on automobiles. I encourage them to give me that authority. It's authority that I use for light trucks. And I intend to use it wisely if Congress would give me that authority." Bush was referring to one of the provisions in the Republican-proposed "Gas Price Relief and Rebate Act of 2006," which would give "the Secretary of Transportation the authority to issue a rule governing fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles."
Bush, however, had long opposed raising fuel-efficiency standards for passenger cars. The New York Times reported on February 6:
The difference on Tuesday was Mr. Bush's emphasis on alternative energy sources that he had not made a top focus in the past: better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, hydrogen cars, ethanol from wood and agricultural waste, solar and wind technologies and what he called ''clean, safe nuclear energy.''
The president's tone was so changed, in fact, that some analysts said he sounded like a Democrat. Dan W. Reicher, who served in the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, said Mr. Bush's ideas showed ''an uncanny resemblance'' to some Clinton efforts.
Mr. Bush's main departure from many Democrats and another source of resistance to his energy plan is his opposition to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars. Mr. Bush has also opposed any effort to impose a higher gasoline tax.
Nevertheless, on the April 27 broadcast of the CBS Evening News, anchor Bob Schieffer made no mention of Bush's apparent turnaround, but instead simply reported: "The president asked Congress today to give him the authority to raise fuel economy standards on all cars. He made the announcement while visiting a Mississippi gas station."
Similarly, Nightly News anchor Brian Williams reported on April 27:
WILLIAMS: President Bush mentioned those high gas prices, and after our interview, as if to underscore that point, he left our location and made an unscheduled stop at a gas station in Biloxi during his travels there today. He pointed out that high gas prices are the equivalent of a tax increase on working people in this country, and he asked Congress for more authority to require automakers to raise fuel efficiency standards.
By contrast, on the April 27 broadcast of ABC's World News Tonight, ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos reported that Bush's request for authority over passenger-car fuel standards represented "a pretty significant shift by the president":
ELIZABETH VARGAS (anchor): We turn now to ABC's chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos, and George, we had a bold move by the president a short time ago. He wants the ability to change the miles per gallon standards -- the so-called CAFE standards -- on his own, something he currently does not have the authority to do.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's exactly right, Elizabeth. This is a pretty significant shift by the president. The administration opposed this kind of move as recently as when the Energy Bill was passed last August. It's something that Democrats and some moderate Republicans on Capitol Hill have been calling for, for a long time. They want to raise the current standard from the current 27 and a half miles per gallon up to about 36 or 40 miles per gallon. The president is now saying he wants the authority to do this on his own, the question will be: How high does he want to raise them? Will he go up to 36 or 40, or does he want something less? But this is a significant shift.
are thirty years late on this issue. but the sheep that follow them will have the usual amnesia.
"You may not agree with me, but at least you know where I stand." and "I'm a stay-the-course kind of guy." and "I don't pay any attention to polls."
He's also a liar. Now that things are desperate for the White House, the sound of Bush flip-flopping in a vain attempt to hold on to a sycophantic Republican majority Congress will be deafening.
As November approaches, we will witness a miraculous phenomena; After YEARS of incompetence and mismanagement, cronyism and corruption, the GOP will try to position themselves as -- you guessed it -- DEMOCRATS.
They will tout "reform", they will grow a rhetorical social conscience, "Compassionate Conservativism" will again be carted out, and changes in policy from labor to energy to entitlements will be heard from the lips of the GOP AND THEY WILL BE POLICY CHANGES THE DEMS HAVE BEEN DEMANDING FOR YEARS!!!!
Now, WHY will the GOP make this rhetorical conversion? Simply because they recognize that Democrat policies and ideas are POPULAR with Americans. Americans wish for the middle class to get some consideration, instead of every advantage being heaped on the already wealthy. Americans wish for fiscal sanity. Americans wish for any WAR to be justified by FACTS, rather than lies. Americans wish for our troops to be supported in the field. Americans wish for commodities like gasoline to be regulated so as to prevent collusion, price gouging, windfall profit seeking, and record profit-taking being accompanied by huge government handouts and subsidies. Americans want good jobs and affordable health care and safety nets for those in desperate need.
The GOP opposes all this, or at least, cannot deliver these things, because their priority is simply GREED.
Republican policy is BAD for America, and they know it. So, their dialogue will morph into promoting DEMOCRAT IDEAS, the same ones the Dems have been advocating for YEARS. (and the same ones the GOP has been denying the Dems HAVE.)
The difference is, the Dems will actuall PASS their plans into LAW. The GOP just wish to hide their true natures, in hopes of squeaking by another election.
Then, it will be back to business as usual, IGNORING the American People while stuffing their pockets. Until it all falls apart.
I expect the Democrats to gain seats in November and likely will take back the White House in 2008. But in my view it has relatively little to do with what Democrats are saying or doing and everything to do with how the Republicans have failed in various leadership areas over the past 6 years. If the Democratic ideas and values were held so dear by so many, well you wouldn't have relinquished power in the first place considering how good you claim Clinton left everything. It's not human nature to turn your back on a good thing.
600,000 more americans voted for gore. and by any comparison the clinton years were way better than the bush years. but gore should have overwhelmed bush, probably the most unqualified person ever to assume the office. a big part of the reason is the misinformed attitudes among many republican voters. maybe someone can help me on this because i think there was a poll a couple years ago that showed bush voters thought that he was in favor of many things he actually opposed. personally i work with about a hundred people and i can say that, in general, the republicans are woefully uninformed.
Yes, Gore did get more votes than Bush in 2000 with a 48.4% vs 47.9% difference, with total votes cast in the election at nearly 105 million. I still think it's legitimate to note that with the booming economy Clinton's tenure achieved that fewer than 50% of the voters voted Democratic in 2000.
The "uninformed" Republican voters you refer to was a theory for the 2004 election with respect to the Iraq war and the connections with Al Queda that didn't exist and the WMD's that were never found. I agree on that point that some Republican voters were ambivalent on those points. On the other hand, what did we hear from Kerry during the campaign? What I remember is Kerry saying he would have done the same thing Bush did, so there really wasn't a clear distinction between the two on the Iraq issue.
on the part of gop voters. they were out and out wrong. but the poll i made reference to was one in which gop voters thought bush was pro-union, pro-environmental, all the things he's not. he's unqualified to be vice-president down at the local bank. there was nothing in his background that suggested he was remotely fit fot the office, and i think we have seen the results of that. yet the gop establishment, newspapers, and voters lined up behind him against an extremely qualified candidate. gore was clinton without the zipper problems. if you want an explanation of how bush got in, don't ask me. i think it defies logic.
I can't really believe I am writing this, but Al Gore is probably the best man for the Presidency.
He has been proven to be ahead of his time at almost every turn. Even to a fault.
1) Al Gore was at the forefront of technology legislation that helped to turn DARPA into the internet.
2) Al Gore was talking about a reasonable plan for energy independence about 14 years ago. If we had followed his plan way back then, the internal combustion engine would be phasing out over the next 10 years or so in favor of more efficient and less poluting technology.
3) Al Gore was talking about corporate accountability in the 2000 election cycle -- before Tyco, MCI, Adelphia, Enron, etc... Much to the dismay of his supporters who thought he should have run on the unparallelled economic success of the Clinton Administration.
Gore has not gone after his critics nearly as aggressively as he should have. If you search on him you can see that almost every negative thing about Gore in the last 10 years has either been completely irrelavant or a complete misrepresentation of what he actually said.
Gore has been right about bigger and more important things than anyone else I have read about. This indicates he has something usually absent from our age...wisdom.
I think we should all give Al a second look.
"If the Democratic ideas and values were held so dear by so many, well you wouldn't have relinquished power in the first place considering how good you claim Clinton left everything. It's not human nature to turn your back on a good thing."
And that would be true if all of the facts were laid out to the American people in simple terms, but as this website shows day after day, major media corporations feel it is their job to muddy the waters. Until the very recently, the radio has been almost exclusively right wing and many "news" shows have slanted that way for a long time. I won't even get into the fair and balanced network. They did a great job in 200o of making the public believe things like Gore said he invented the Internet. They repeated over and over again the Clinton history of immorality and pretended it was all Gore's. And yet, the drunk driving, cocaine use, etc. of Bush is not connected to "the man he is today". Those that screamed for a journalist's dismissal over the Air National Guard story stood by their stories of the Clinton administration having people murdered, and stealing objects and vandalizing the White House when they left. Those same people who put forth the Swift Boat story, the Kerry having a mistress story (Drudge broke that one, but Hannity ran with it), the Kerry and Jane Fonda (fake) photos, all kept their jobs and continued their "reporting of the news" while one man lost his job for getting it wrong once the other way. They report these fake stories and pretend that no one on the left has an idea. It is easy to see in the face of 24/7 brainwashing why the right won. What amazes me is that in the face of all of that, Gore still managed to win the popular vote.
I believe as you seem to, that Gore would have won without Clintons Lewinsky scandal. That just proves how appalling it was to so many despite the "framing" of it by the left as being a personal issue. What you do while in the Whitehouse counts a lot more than what you do before you get there. And the cover-up waving the finger wasn't good either. That wasn't Gores fault of course but he paid the price for Clintons mistake.
There was plenty of sympathetic media out there for Gore, a majority of editorial boards endorsed Gore and that reaches more people than any of the cable TV stuff. You can't just look at one side.
Bruce,
You have proven again to be a fantastic analyst. Too bad Fox (or any media) doesn't employ commonsense conservatives like yourself.
I am very liberal, but I am an independent. What you said about people voting more against the Republicans than for the Democrats is entirely true. The biggest mistake the Democrats could make is to interpret a massive vote count as an unqualified endorsement of the most radical liberal ideas. Moderate governments are always the most successful and longest lasting.
We will know just how well the Democrats will keep power by the level of hyperbole and gloating on election night. Every time I hope it doesn't happen, but the winning side always gloats and always takes too much credit when their opponent simply imploded on his/her own.
Hopefully I am wrong and the Democrats have actually learned some humility over the considerable time they have been out of power.
counts more than what you do before you get there". agreed. bush has failed at everything. but given his background that's no surprise.
And that is what it turned out to be- hogwash. The powerful people in charge of decisions had no intention of following thru. And furthermore, how do we know Alaskan oil isn't going to China ( or the Soviet Union for that matter ) ??