Opinion and Commentary

If we are going to continue fiddling while the world's supply of fossil fuel peters out - endangering both the global environment and our national security - at least the kids will be marginally safer during Trick or Treat.

Congress not only plays ostrich yet again by ignoring the looming climate crisis; it once again has refused to forge a commitment to independence from foreign oil - especially if it means saying no to its corporate sponsors.

Nearly all Americans say that they're worried about this. But our so-called representatives respond with what the Washington Post termed a "pinata of perks." ...

In the Yale study, 93 percent of the respondents said it was a "good idea" for the government to require the auto industry to make cars that get better gas mileage. In what looks like a desperate plea to "stop me before I guzzle again," 90 percent of SUV owners think this is a good idea.

These Americans didn't know that American cars are less fuel-efficient than they were in the late 1980s, when cars got an average of 22.1 miles per gallon. In 2004, the average had fallen to 20.8.

Americans wouldn't know it now, either, except that an employee of the Environmental Protection Agency sent a copy of its findings to the New York Times last week just before the EPA - in classic Bush administration protocol - decided to withhold the inconvenient information.

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