Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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A Crisis is When Your Lights Go Out;
A Catastrophe is When MY Lights Go Out

Monday, May 14, 2001

The Energy Policy Blitz has begun. There was consternation around Your Nation's Capital for the past month or so because nothing was leaking out of the Cabinet-level group working on the project.

If you are a lobbyist in Washington you have to be able to telephone your clients and give them scoop that your client can't read on the internet. You HAVE to be able to say, "I just talked to (choose one: Andy, Karen, Karl, Scooter, Mary, Don, Spence, Gale, Norm, Condi, Mitch, Larry, Josh, Nick, or Cesar) and this is what's coming down."

As an example: I just talked to sources in the House who told me that they intend to mark up a comprehensive energy bill in Joe Barton's (R-TX) Energy Sub-committee and Billy Tauzin's (R-LA) full Energy & Commerce Committee in mid-June, and take it to the House floor sometime between the July 4th and the August recesses. Pretty good, huh?

In his weekly radio address, President Bush said, "Over the long term, the most effective way to conserve energy is by using energy more efficiently. Pushing conservation forward will require investment in new energy technology, and that will be part of my administration's energy plan."

LA Times' Richard Simon caught the drift: "Bush's focus on conservation �follows criticism that he and Vice President Dick Cheney have been drafting a plan that is heavily weighted toward more oil and gas drilling while giving short shrift to other approaches to the energy problem."

Just once I would like to see a policy described as "giving long shrift" to something.

California Governor Gray Davis, on Fox News Sunday, said so many good things about President Bush it sounded like he was auditioning to be the California chair of the re-election campaign.

The San Francisco Chronicle had a pretty good piece yesterday outlining the relationship between California and El Paso Energy of - ta da! - Texas and how the state and the corporation set about creating this situation by each acting in its own self interests (to the exclusion of the interests of the other) as soon as one had an advantage.

If California and Texas were different countries, instead of different states, and if they were located about 1,500 miles to the south, the Sunday news shows would not have been re-hashing the Timothy McVeigh debacle, they would have been debating whether we should send in troops to keep the California military forces from attempting to cross the Texas border.

See who the people on that list are, the Chronicle article, the beginning of a travelogue on my upcoming trip to India, and my picture as the Catchy Caption of the day on the Secret Decoder Ring.

Two deaths over the past few days: Douglas Adams, who wrote "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and its sequels (the last of which, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" was subtitled: The Fourth Book in the Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy), died of a heart attack at age 49. The Guide was a travel book - in the broadest sense of the word - whose cover was distinguished by the two words, "Don't Panic!" Which is still good advice.

The second sad note was the death of singer Perry Como at age 88 or so. You may have to be of an age - MY age - to have appreciated how listening the smooth voice and easy style, even in the era of the Beatles, the Stones, and Janice Joplin, could bring a smile to one's lips.

Speaking of travel guides, Mullings is hitching up and going on a one-week trek to India. Assuming normal communications are possible, there will be reports from the road in the form of the travelogue noted above. The pre-trip excitement can be shared on the SDR page starting today!

Sap Alert! The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices - along with about a hundred million others - celebrated Mothers' Day yesterday. In the case of the MDofS&P it was the 25th anniversary of a Mother's Day for which The Lad has been present.

To quote a Perry Como song: "And tomorrow, if you asked me for the world I'd try to get it; I would sell my very soul and not regret it; but to live without your love, it's just impossible."

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Copyright © 2001 Richard A. Galen

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