Go, Rahm, Go

I'm probably as Republican as they git. And I'm certainly no Rahm Emanuel fan because he did such a politically admirable, tho otherwise unpardonable job defending the indefensible--Billary in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Have to tip my hat, tho, that he's come up with a great bill that would encourage the development of natural gas automobiles. Read the press release here. Found a reference to it on T. Boone Pickens' Pickens Plan site.

Tho I'm not convinced, as T. Boone is, that wind is the solution to our energy probs, the thought of natural gas cars replacing gasoline cars fascinates me. Battery cars have to be plugged in and to do any kind of major conversion will take more nuclear power plants. That will take years. Also, I'm not sure how clean all these batteries will end up being in the long run.

Rahm's bill would require car companies to build NG cars (the technology's already there), encourage gas stations to start providing NG, and give tax incentives to regular folks who buy the NG cars or convert their gasoline cars to NG. Talking heads on CNBC argued the other morn whether that conversion would cost $2,000 or $3,000, so conversion would assumably be in that neighborhood.

The thing that sounded coolest in Rahm's press release was the "Phill". Should his bill pass, we would get tax credits for installing Phill connections so that cars could fill up at home by connecting to home NG lines. Think of it: every night we could fill up our cars right in our own garages. We'd never have to stop at a "gas" station again. How convenient is that!

So Rahm . . . I can't see me ever voting for you, but I certainly support you on this one. Hopefully, knuckle heads on both sides of the aisle and in both houses of Congress will pull together and push this thing through.