The U.S. is Running Out of Energy.

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But hydrogen power went nowhere then, just as it went nowhere when it was trumpeted nearly a century ago. It will probably go nowhere today, for many reasons, most notably a chronic case of short attention span among American politicians when it comes to energy policy. With great fanfare, lawmakers and Presidents--both Democrats and Republicans--announce sweeping plans to end or ease American dependence on foreign oil and find other stable sources of energy. When the headlines and television sound bites fade away, however, they scrap the programs, which then are often reintroduced to an unsuspecting public as new in later years by another generation of lawmakers and Presidents. But changing anything as deep-seated as America's habits of energy use calls for consistency and follow through, so the failure of Washington to stick with hardly any of its plans has wound up making the U.S. more dependent than ever on foreign sources.

Now Congress is about to enact yet another doomed energy policy that promises more of the same. Take hydrogen. Ideally, the gas would be extracted from water using fusion technology. But that won't be available for decades. In the interim, a substitute energy source would be used--natural gas. Yes, the same natural gas already in short supply.

Then there's coal. The Senate bill would authorize spending $200 million a year to study and develop "clean coal" technologies. But that's a substantial comedown from the billions spent in the 1970s and 1980s to encourage development of an industry that would turn coal into oil and synthetic gas, enabling the U.S. to dramatically curb imports. It never came about.

The Senate bill also contains an assortment of goodies. It would hand out $3.5 billion to revive America's moribund nuclear power industry--even though the last order for a plant that actually went online was placed in 1973. It would parcel out nearly $10 billion in tax breaks and subsidies to oil and gas companies that will not erase falling production but instead enrich oilmen and investors. At the same time, the President's proposed budget slashes spending on wind research by 5.5%, zero-energy buildings by 50% and biomass by 19%. To add to the insult, the Administration took the money to print its 170-page 2001 National Energy Policy out of the budget for renewable fuels.

This comes at a time when Americans are heading into their first big energy squeeze since the 1970s: a shortage of natural gas, the invisible resource used to heat homes, fuel kitchen appliances, generate electricity and manufacture many of the chemicals we use. The shortage has triggered a sharp rise in prices that is likely to exact a heavy toll on low- and middle-income Americans, especially those living on fixed incomes. Home heating bills last winter more than doubled in some areas, and they are expected to go up at least another 20% this winter. Electric bills also will spike because generating plants are increasingly gas-fueled. And in places like Louisiana, where the petrochemical industry makes up a big part of the local economy, the shortage is causing a loss of jobs, with at least 2,000 layoffs so far. The entire industry may be forced to move offshore over the next few years if there is no relief.