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Dear Congressman Dicks ... Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 12:25 PM Please help support a filibuster against Cheney's "energy bill". This industry designed plan offers neither the American people nor the people of the rest of the world anything of value, and amounts, at best, to a huge increase in everyone's energy bills, in subsidies to be paid out of taxes and other accounts. But I fear that there are much larger consequences. You and I both know that the power grid and many other areas of America's power generation and distribution infrastructure are in need of major overhaul, but you also know that what we need to insure that the overhaul really occurs is something that actually requires that it happen: a clear plan and fund obligating instruments that make it not only possible, but unavoidable. This energy bill does not provide such a plan. This "energy plan" make WPPSS look like a major gift to the public. If you believe that global warming is an apparent component of reality, and if you believe that it is in some way related to carbon releases by humans, then I assume that you also recognize our need to develop a path toward reduction of per-capita energy consumption and per-capita carbon release in the US. I suggest that it is the US that has led the world down this path and that in all likelihood, noone but the US can lead the world back from it. Our energy policy must address real-world day-to-day releases of pollutants, including carbon compounds, and it must not trade increases now for hypothetical reductions through unproven means in the unspecified future. Relaxation of the regulatory environment promoted by the power industry has led directly to neglect, fraud and abuse. It certainly appears to this observer that tightening of the regulatory environment not a further relaxation of industry regulation and public protections accompanied by subsidies for the offenders, is what is now required if we what the situation to improve. I am counting on you to actually read the fine print, connect the dots, and use whatever influence you can muster to block this horrible energy bill, which will otherwise go down as the "next" in the string of catastrophic raids on the world's unprotected publics by this administration. Joe Breskin 1033 Lawrence Street Port Townsend, Washington |