Bush's Gas Pain

About ANWR

The Anchorage Daily News explains that "opening the coastal plain is strongly opposed by environmentalists, most Democrats and a few moderate Republicans because of the area's environmental sensitivity and arguments that even large amounts of ANWR oil wouldn't help much, especially the immediate problem of high prices.

"In 2005, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that it would take about 10 years before oil would flow from ANWR if drilling were approved. By 2025, it said, the additional oil would have only a slight impact on global oil prices and cause a decline in gasoline prices of less than a penny a gallon, using constant 2003 dollars."

Tom Doggett writes for Reuters that Bush's claim that had Congress approved ANWR drilling, the United States would be less addicted to foreign oil and fuel prices would be lower "doesn't reflect the long lead time to develop the refuge's huge oil reserves, which would not be available for several more years." He also explains that "initial volumes would still be small" even if Congress had approved the administration's plan in 2002.

"Bush during his first year in office made giving energy companies access to the estimated 10 billion barrels of crude in the refuge the centerpiece of his national energy policy that sprouted from Vice President Dick Cheney's controversial and secretive energy task force," Doggett writes.

Bush, Libby, and the Rule of Law

John Diedrich writes in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "When President Bush erased the prison term of I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, he reinforced some Americans' perception that status can affect justice, according to the judge who sentenced Libby.

"In commuting the 2 1/2 -year prison term of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Bush called U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton's sentence excessive, given Libby's 'exceptional public service' and lack of criminal history.

"Walton, whom Bush nominated to the District of Columbia bench, acknowledged Tuesday that Bush's decision was part of the system, but he also said it fed some people's notion that justice isn't equal.

"'The president has that authority and exercised it, and that has to be respected,' said Walton, who is to speak Thursday in Milwaukee at a literacy event.

"'The downside is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. . . . It is crucial that the American public respect the rule of law, or people won't follow it.' . . .

"Walton, who said he and his family were threatened after he handed down the sentence, said the time he gave Libby was at the low end of federal sentencing guidelines."

I believe this is only Walton's second public statement about Bush's decision. Back in July, in a footnote to a ruling about the conditions of Libby's parole, he wrote that he was "perplexed" by the act of clemency:

"In commuting the defendant's thirty-month term of incarceration, the President stated that the sentence imposed by this Court was 'excessive' and that two years of supervised release and a $250,000 alone are a 'harsh punishment' for an individual convicted on multiple counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators. Although it is certainly the President's prerogative to justify the exercise of his constitutional commutation power in whatever manner he chooses (or even to decline to provide a reason for his actions altogether), the Court notes that the term of incarceration imposed in this case was determined after a careful consideration of each of the requite statutory factors, and was consistent with the bottom end of the applicable sentencing range as properly calculated under the United States Sentencing Guidelines."