The Bush administration has often been accused of a purely symbolic commitment to clean energy. But even its supporters might not reject that description of its latest announcement: the torch on the Statue of Liberty, perhaps the single most famous symbol of the United States, is to be lit exclusively by wind power.
The ”huddled masses” famously welcomed to the US by the inscription on the statue will be able to breathe a little more freely after the US National Parks Service announced a contract to provide 27-million kilowatt hours of green energy to the statue, as well as to the nearby Ellis Island museum and several other sites.
”It is an honour to assist Lady Liberty in keeping the torch shining,” said Ed Mayberry, president of Pepco Energy Services, which won the three-year contract and will provide power primarily from wind farms in Pennsylvania and New York state.
An even more prominent commitment to alternative energy had been promised in an early design for Daniel Libeskind’s rebuilding of Ground Zero, which was to have included 30 windmills at the top of the centrepiece Freedom Tower. They were abandoned in later versions, though the final design is expected to use rainwater for toilets and fire sprinklers.
President George Bush has been working hard to establish his green credentials in recent months, announcing a 22% increase in funding for renewables in his 2007 Budget and making a high-profile visit to a solar plant last month.
But environmental campaigners say almost half the renewable programmes signed into law last year remain unfunded.
”The president’s pollsters are telling him that high energy prices and his drill-only energy policy are driving his job-approval numbers down. So he’s decided to go out and tell Americans what the polls tell him they want to hear,” said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. ”It’s just the same old oil guy doing photo ops at solar plants.”
The Statue of Liberty, which officially opened in 1886, was donated as a gesture of friendship by France. Thanks to emergency generators, the statue’s torch was one of the only lights left shining in New York when a power failure across the north-eastern US in 2003 plunged the city into darkness. — Guardian Unlimited Â