WILMINGTON, DEL. — President Bush ordered the federal government Wednesday to move toward purchasing hybrid-powered vehicles and reducing the federal fleet's petroleum consumption by 2% each year, part of an effort to boost alternatives to gasoline.
Bush announced the executive order during a morning devoted to promoting new-technology fuels. In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, he set a goal of reducing the nation's gasoline consumption by 20% over 10 years, mainly by boosting ethanol production and toughening mileage standards for cars and light trucks.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's senior environment and energy advisors said they had major concerns about Bush's strategy -- saying his proposals to increase the use of alternative fuels could sharply increase greenhouse gas emissions by opening the door to heavily polluting oil shale, tar sands and coal.
They also worried about California's low-carbon fuel policy being preempted by federal proposals.
While emphasizing that they were still studying Bush's plans, California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Linda S. Adams, California Air Resources Board Chairman Robert F. Sawyer and other officials said that the state's program for reducing the use of traditional fuels does not call for increased use of any particular alternative fuel, such as ethanol. Instead, they said, it lets the market decide if ethanol, plug-in or hybrid vehicles or other biofuels should be used to reach the state's goals.
Sawyer said that, depending on how it's produced, ethanol can have either a negligible or a very substantial effect on greenhouse gas emissions. Other fuels could be even worse, he said.
"We're concerned some of the alternatives, such as tar sands, coal and oil shale -- these sources of alternative fuels can increase [greenhouse gas] emissions as much as a factor of two over petroleum. So, we view that as a very negative direction to go in," Sawyer said.
Adams and Dan Skopec, undersecretary of the state EPA, expressed concern that existing federal renewable fuels mandates on refineries, combined with Bush's new policies, could be implemented in ways that would preempt California's landmark greenhouse gas law, which requires a 25% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
"It will potentially be problematic, and of course it depends on what the president proposes, and what Congress chooses to act on. So, the devil will be in the details on this issue of renewable fuels," Skopec said.
