It was almost certainly the first State of the Union address in United States history to mention switchgrass. It grows in marshes and may, according to President George W Bush, be part of the solution to the US’s oil addiction.
In six years, said Bush, the ethanol derived from such vegetable matter would be a viable, affordable fuel for the US’s cars. Coupled with other innovations, hydrogen fuel-cell and hybrid vehicles would replace three-quarters of the US’s current consumption of oil from the Middle East.
If nothing else, it was a masterful stroke of public relations by the White House. Bush took the media by surprise with extraordinary plans and seemingly hard figures promising optimistic solutions to two of the greatest anxieties facing the US: high fuel prices and the spectre of being overshadowed economically by China and India.
To address the former, he promised an inventive technological fix. With regard to the latter, he pledged 70 000 more science teachers and 30 000 professional mathematicians and scientists to be drafted into classrooms. Who could disagree?
But there are some grounds for sceptical pause. Bush has been here before. He has pledged support for alternative fuel in previous addresses, but US dependence on foreign oil continues to rise. He persuaded Democrats to join him on the No Child Left Behind Education Act in 2002, then failed to deliver enough money to run the programme.
He has also used the speech to offer the vision of US astronauts returning to the moon and using it as a launching pad to Mars. Once again, the vision was there, but the money wasn’t.
Then there is the fine print. Bush’s oil independence pledge is less ambitious than it seems. He predicted the US would replace 75% of Middle East oil imports by 2025, but only a fifth of US imports come from the region. So alternative fuels would only account for 15% of total imports.
To achieve his goals, Bush wants to rely once more on market incentives spurred on by innovation, and avoid government regulation. But this approach has done little to curb greenhouse gases. Since Bush took office, net imports of oil have risen from 53% of consumption to 60%.
Reacting to Bush’s speech, Jason Mark of the Union of Concerned Scientists said: ”We could save more than 75% of Middle East oil imports within 10 years by increasing the fuel economy of our cars and trucks to 40 miles a gallon. The investments in renewable fuel technologies that the president proposed will pay important dividends down the road. But you can’t transform transportation by research alone. We need aggressive policies now to wean ourselves off oil.”
The State of the Union tradition is an important presidential asset. It is an extraordinary piece of theatre, which provides a string of television sound bites. But that is all it is. Once the curtain comes down, the audience is left humming some of the catchier tunes, but can rarely remember much of the plot. — Â