Bush’s Oil-Based Energy Policies

Re “Bush’s Energy Plan Bares Industry Clout,” Aug. 26: Reading about the Bush administration’s sellout to the energy industry, one has to marvel at the Republicans’ dedication to the past. They certainly aren’t paying attention to the present, when conservation, clean air and energy efficiency are needed. They also aren’t preparing for the future, when oil-based energy will be long dead.

The only conclusion to come to is that the administration is preparing for the past. Its policies in areas such as global warming, defense strategy, Social Security and education prove that the Republicans are pushing as hard as they can to shove us back into the past. A time when oil barons and railroad bosses ran America. Now, the past isn’t such a bad place to be if you are a polluter or oil executive, but it’s a terrible place to be if you are a citizen of the U.S. who yearns for solutions to problems that will only get worse as time goes on.

Donnie Dale

Hollywood

Your article attempts to weave an expose of an administration selling out to the fossil fuel and nuclear energy industries when much better alternatives are available. But what is the impact of these alternatives on the total supply? The U.S. currently (1998 Energy Information Agency’s most recent data) relies on fossil fuels and nuclear for 95% of its energy needs, with hydroelectric and renewable including solar and wind sources supplying 1% and 4% respectively. Looking into the future, the EIA projects that for 2020, worldwide reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear will actually increase. So to assure future supply, it only makes sense to go where the supply is and not to concentrate on the 4% solution.

Finally, using anecdotal evidence, the article implies that gas well fracturing is somehow a process under review by the EPA for possible termination. This environmentally safe and proven recovery technique has been used by the gas industry for years, and its application is responsible for the majority of our current gas supply.

Richard D. Finken

Petroleum Engineer

Redondo Beach

Your article on Bush’s energy plan cleared any doubts I had on the plan. It was so gratifying to read that the plan was designed by energy experts without the inexperienced input of politicians and environmentalists.

Robert Rosenast

Newport Beach

So the energy companies, meeting in secret with Dick Cheney, are dictating the country’s energy policy. And, among other things, they overrode Bush’s campaign commitments about carbon dioxide emissions. They demanded and he obediently gave in.

At first I thought it was just extreme shortsightedness that caused him to cut funding for alternative fuel research, refuse to support higher gas mileage requirements for SUVs and advocate ignoring smog standards to ease California’s (energy-company caused) power shortage. But now I realize that it is simple greed. The energy companies surely got their money’s worth when they got this puppet appointed.

Steve Dillow

Torrance

H EAD Schools Overwhelmed

by Monetary Neglect

“Teachers Learn to Face Risks, Fears” (Aug. 25), about inner-city teachers facing violence, may play nicely to middle-class fears and prejudices but it gets the plight of urban L.A. teachers exactly wrong. Student violence is a minor problem compared with our major problem: the routine combination of harassment and neglect we receive from the LAUSD and society.

This is comically evident even from your article. The teacher who was socked in the mouth left not in fear of further violence but because the district’s failure to build new schools forced him to travel between four classrooms. The teacher who faced an angry parent could have simply called for help, but like so many things in our urban schools, her intercom was broken. Even the as-yet-unmolested teacher sequestered in affluent Mt. Washington would feel less nervous if her room came equipped with that new high-tech communication tool, the telephone.

Scott Banks

Los Angeles

H EAD Computer Malpractice

Re “Online Submission Process Fails Medical School Hopefuls,” Aug. 25: Listen up, future doctors of America. If you think that’s a problem, just think what it will be like after you get your shingles and start calling those HMOs for authorization to do the necessary tests on your patients. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Richard Jacobson MD

Granada Hills