The following is a written statement by Jill Lancelot, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense on the President signing the energy bill

Washington, D.C. – In nearly five years in office, President Bush has yet to veto a single bill. As one of the worst bills to ever cross his desk, we thought the $85 billion energy bill would give the President a golden opportunity to break the slump.

Make no mistake about it. America does need a comprehensive energy policy, now more than ever. But this bill is a broken bat single when our nation deeply needs a grand slam. It won’t lower prices at the pump, won’t reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and won’t spur on the innovation that our country needs. Instead of crafting an innovative energy blueprint for the next generation, the congressional authors chose to swing for the fences on behalf of already well-heeled special interests, with huge government handouts at the taxpayer’s expense.

In this year’s budget request, the President asked for an energy bill with no more than $6.7 billion in tax breaks. This bill has nearly twice that – it’s got $14.6 billion in breaks and $3.1 billion in revenue raisers, for a total net tax cost of $11.5 billion. That’s too much money to be giving away at a time of massive budget deficits – particularly for a bill that’s not going to solve any of America’s energy problems.

We know that the President is busy, so we don’t expect him to read through all 1,724 pages of this energy monstrosity. Here’s the cliff notes version: $550 million for the Denali Commission, an organization whose only purpose is to funnel federal funds into Alaska, $1.5 billion for a new ultra-deepwater slush fund, money that will go largely to the Texas Energy Center, and $250,000 for a study on “cold cracking” – something that the energy bill’s authors all but admitted they had never even heard of before.

The nation deserves an energy policy that is not powered by pork. We can do better than this package of government giveaways to mega-rich energy companies.

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