Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

I know that Bush has made a commitment to reduce our reliance on foreign oil in each of the last four State of the Union addresses. Even so, I still welcomed the specific goal he announced the other night. Even if national security is a driving motivation, reducing America's oil consumption will help the climate, our health, our pocketbooks, and our innovative environmental industries. But at this point, expectations are very, very low, and this quote - buried at the very bottom of a lengthy NYT article on the energy commitment, only lowers them further:

Bush's Goals on Energy Quickly Find Obstacles - New York Times: "The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports. The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas. The cut is for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1."