Although environmentalists like the prospect of clean hydrogen cars, some of them criticized Bush for focusing on a car of the future instead of the ones on the road today. They said he was using the hydrogen car as a way to protect the auto industry from tougher standards for fuel economy and emissions today.
Presidential freedom
"The so-called FreedomCar initiative is really about freedom for the president not to support energy independence today," said Nathanael Greene, a policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Daniel F. Becker, the director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program, said the FreedomCar was reminiscent of a Clinton administration program that spent more than US$1 billion on a new generation of fuel-efficient cars but failed to produce any for sale.
"It is a sham program," he said, "merely designed to create the impression that Detroit and the Bush administration are moving toward clean cars when they have no such intention."
The GM hydrogen cars coming to Washington were dismissed as "PR cars" by Jerry Taylor, the director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute.
He said he was skeptical that bringing them to Washington would yield any public benefit, because politicians here have never shown much of a knack for spotting the next great source of energy.
"The federal government's record in picking winners in the energy industry is so bad that random investments would have almost certainly yielded higher returns," Taylor said.
"Nuclear power, synthetic fuels, solar and wind power, clean coal -- all have been sinkholes for tax dollars, but bonanzas for well-connected industries."?
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