It recognizes the need to foster more oil production and refining capacity and the growing demand for electricity. In many ways, the nation is paying the price for it. Cheney's Cabinet-level task force will make more formal recommendations in a few weeks to President Bush, who has promised to work on ensuring future energy supplies and reducing dependence on foreign oil. Already, as expected, the ideas presented by Cheney are under attack from congressional Democrats. These, by the way, are the same special interests that, receiving little or no sympathy, lost hundreds of thousands of jobs over the last two decades.
Democratic critics say the policy needs to put more emphasis on reducing demand.
Already, those critics are trying to paint the Bush program as anti-conservation, which is not the case. Cheney said specifically that conservation alone would not provide the answer. He did not say there is no role for conservation. All in all, it's a pretty realistic assessment of the situation. The questions, of course, revolve around specific solutions.