Guess the advisors are from major domestic energy companies from the field of oil and gas... No wonder they are opposed to removing big tax breaks to the companies which pay a big part of their salary...

I beliefe its time for change :)

Let's see if the Republicans who are standing for re-election are smart enough this time to distance themselves from the oil companies and President Bush by over-ridding the veto.

Those durn treehuggnin' liberals! :-)

Well. Lets see if McCain doesn't show up to vote on it.
Again.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=51307
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/07/mccain-stimulus-2/

I wonder if these amounts of money wouldn't save much more CO2 if invested in subsidies for solar roofs or heat pumps for building heating.
With a single investment of 8000$, you could buy and install a solar collector on your roof for producing most of the heat needed for building heating and sanitary heating. That single investment would eliminate most of the CO2 production involved for at least 20 years. (while you could crash your expensive car after one week)
With a heat pump you could lower the CO2 footprint of heating your home dramatically with a relatively low cost compared to electric cars.

Just calculate your own consumption of heating oil or natural gas or kilowatts and compare it to your own consumption of gasoline. For most people, the CO2 production involved in heating your home and water is much higher than the CO2 consumption caused by (one of your) cars.

Alain:

You may be correct as far as heat pumps are concerned.

We installed a new very high efficiency SEER 23 variable speeds programmable heat pump last year and we noticed a 40% reduction in the KWh used with increased confort.

If all older ineffcient (SEER 8 to 12) HVAC units currently used in the USA were changed for SEER 22 to 25 Heat Pumps, the electrical energy saved could be enough for many million PHEV and/or BEVs without additional power stations.

Three to four tonnes replacement units cost only about $2500 to $3000, A $1000 to $1500 hand out (tax credit) per home should be sufficent to convince the majority to act.

OTOH, proportional hand outs (tax credits) will be required to accellerate the transition from ICE to Hybrids-PHEVs-BEVs vehicles.

A progressive (4 to 5 cents/gallon/month) fuel tax could finance both programmes for the next 10 to 12 years. After 2020, the transition period should be on the last phase and the programmes could be revisited.

Concurrently, a new monster gas guzzler yearly registration fee (up to $1 per pound over 2500 or 3000 lbs) could help to finance energy saving & GHG reduction programmes. A similar but negative registration fee for vehicles under 2000 lbs or over 100 mpg or CO2 under 100 mg/Km may also help.

Politicians with more imagination are required.

Harvey
Tax and spend, IMHO is not the way to go. Incentives (positive ones) will prime the pump and then science and capitalism can do the rest.

This incentive and the HVAC incentive should both be put in place. This exercise is to determine who will pay for it. Here's a novel idea... How 'bout the oil barons AND government? As in axing 5% of government's over-bloated work force and cutting half the subsidies (tax breaks) to oil and gas?

But if they did that, they couldn't hang puppet bush with the veto.