What a Surprise!

Yup, this administration is dedicated to alternative sources of energy, all right.

The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports.

The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas. The cut is for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.

Meanwhile, that goal "to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025," is already getting hazy:

"I believe in a relatively quick period of time, within my lifetime, we'll be able to reduce if not end dependence on Middle Eastern oil by this new technology" of converting corn, wood, grasses and other products into ethanol, he said.

Granted, the man is not a master of articulate speech, but if he stood before the American people and set a goal of a 75% reduction in 19 years, it sort of implies that he believes we can reduce our dependency in his lifetime, doesn't it? Though it does point out that 'reducing our imports' isn't necessarily the same thing as 'reducing our dependency'. Looks like more of the Bush administration top language-parsers may be at work here.

Maybe we can get one of the laid-off biomass guys in Denver to explain it to us.