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The White House plan is also expected to include proposals to streamline the licensing of natural-gas pipelines and nuclear plants. One idea is to decrease the number of public hearings required before a license is granted. In another boost to the nation's moribund nuclear-power industry -- one that is sure to raise the hackles of antinuclear activists and state lawmakers -- the plan proposes to cut states out of the approval process when selecting sites for storing nuclear waste.
At most, alternative-energy sources will be given only modest gestures of support, including extension of tax incentives for solar and geothermal-energy investments. The conservation measures that survived the White House triage are even more modest. Most likely to be included are tax breaks for builders of energy-efficient homes and office buildings and energy-efficiency labeling requirements for products.
Even many Administration officials concede that any serious effort to cut oil consumption would have to be built around an increased gas tax. But the President, a former Texas oilman, won't hear of it. The White House fears that higher gas prices could put downward pressure on an economy already in recession. Bush is also mindful of the potential cost to his popularity. He remembers all too vividly how his standing in the polls plunged during the federal budget fight last autumn, when he mishandled the budget deal that resulted in a nickel-a-gallon gas-tax increase.
Congressional Democrats are blaming Bush for a failure of leadership. "The President could call for a 10 cents- or 15 cents-per-gal. tax on gasoline, and the American people would back him all the way," says Michigan Democrat John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "He could call it a tax to support our war effort, and it would rally the nation."
But given American resistance to new taxes, Democrats may simply be asking the President to walk the plank ahead of them. Republican pollster Robert Teeter has provided the White House with data showing that a gas tax is especially unpopular with so-called Reagan Democrats, the blue-collar swing voters whom Bush needs for re-election in 1992. "Cheap fuel is part of our standard of living," says oil expert Robert Bradley of the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "You can force Americans to drive small, unsafe cars, pay $5 per gallon for gas, and force the poor to abandon their automobiles. But Americans don't want that."
Legislative strategy is another reason why conservation measures were neglected in the plan. The President's proposals are merely a first move in what is sure to be a lengthy tug-of-war with Congress. Sununu and Darman were concerned that the opening bid not be too generous. That's the mistake they feel Bush made in his initial version of last year's Clean Air Act, which gave Congress the chance to make the law significantly tougher and more expensive during a year of negotiations.