Bush offers alternative-fuel plan

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration yesterday unveiled the first-ever national goals for increasing the use of alternative fuels in cars and trucks, but several environmental groups and an influential member of Congress said the plan could do more harm than good to efforts to curb global warming because it includes the use of liquid coal.

Senior administration officials also asked Congress for the ability to change the fuel-economy standards for vehicles, even though many experts say the executive branch already has that power.

The administration's alternative fuel plan would require that at least 7.5 billion gallons of such fuels be blended into the nation's fuel supply for cars and trucks by 2012, and at least 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels must be used annually by 2017 -- a nearly fivefold increase in five years. This year, the target is about 4.7 billion gallons, mostly ethanol produced from corn, and biodiesel, made largely with vegetable oil.

The goal is to reduce the country's reliance on foreign oil by 20 percent in the next decade.

"This is an important first step of jumping off that treadmill of dependence on foreign oil," said the Environmental Protection Agency's administrator, Stephen L. Johnson. He called the proposal, which would need Congress's approval, a "hat trick -- it protects the environment, strengthens our energy security, and supports America's farmers."

But on the administration's most pressing issue related to global warming -- last week's Supreme Court decision that ruled against the federal government by saying the EPA has the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from autos -- Johnson said it was too early to talk about the government's response.

Critics said he is needlessly delaying action.

"There are only two ways they can respond," said David Doniger , climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They can look at the science and conclude that global warming is real, human emissions are causing it, and they will regulate. Or they could try to come up with some scientific rationale why car emissions aren't contributing to global warming."

The administration yesterday preferred to focus on its alternative fuel proposal.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said he hoped the main technological breakthroughs would come from ethanol made from switchgrass or wood chips. He said that liquid coal "will not be a particularly important component. It was included because of its enhancement of energy security in this country."

But Representative Edward J. Markey, the Malden Democrat and chairman of the newly formed House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said liquid coal fuel "actually has the potential for increasing the greenhouse gas problem for the planet," because of its carbon dioxide emissions.

"What the president is doing is blurring the distinction between renewable fuels and alternative fuels," Markey said.

Bodman and Johnson said that they believed in the possibility of "clean coal," in which carbon dioxide emissions could be stored in underground caverns.

It's a technology now in use only in small-scale projects because of its high cost.

On fuel-efficiency standards, Markey has introduced a bill calling for a mandatory 4 percent annual increase in gas mileage over the next decade, resulting in an average of 35 miles per gallon for all vehicles by 2018.

President Bush has called for a 4 percent increase next year, but the administration opposes a mandatory standard and wants the flexibility to set targets.

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.