WASHINGTON — Amid their looming conflicts on energy policy, President Bush and his critics appear to have reached agreement on an unlikely point: Neither side is preparing to ask for significant sacrifices from the public to respond to rising prices and squeezed supplies.
In the energy policy blueprint it will release next week, the administration is expected to present enhanced production as the key to easing the energy crunch. Democrats and environmentalists, in response, are stressing measures to prod manufacturers to design more energy-efficient products, from cars to air conditioners.
But neither side is yet suggesting that ordinary Americans--whose average energy consumption has increased steadily over the last 15 years--may have to scale back lifestyles that increasingly include mammoth sport-utility vehicles, dawn-to-dark home computer use and new houses 50% larger than a generation ago.
In fact, as the debate over Bush's plan approaches, both sides are working overtime to insist that their solutions will allow Americans to use virtually as much energy as they want--without sacrifice.
In a striking declaration earlier this week, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer portrayed unconstrained energy use as virtually an American birthright. "That's a big no," he answered when asked if Bush believes Americans need to curtail their energy use. "The president believes that's an American way of life and that it should be the goal of policymakers to protect the American way of life."
More surprising, environmentalists mobilizing to fight Bush's plan are sending a similar message. "We don't need to sacrifice a lifestyle in order to save energy," says Dan Becker, director of the global warming and energy program for the Sierra Club.
This improbable consensus reflects a deeper political calculation shaping both sides' response to the energy challenge. After a decade in which American life on almost every front--from energy to jobs to federal revenues--has been defined by abundance, politicians have grown extremely reluctant to confront voters with hard choices and unpleasant alternatives.
The big question is whether either side's preferred solutions can resolve the long-term energy problem without forcing Americans to face at least some of those hard choices.
