Re: SC27

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101706J.shtml

Dark Days Ahead

One of the biggest failures of George W. Bush's presidency has been his administration's total disregard of the nation's power infrastructure - an issue that is a LARGER THREAT to homeland security than the impending attack on US soil by al Qaeda-type terrorists for which we've been issued murky warnings over the years.

On Monday, the North American Electric Reliability Council, an organization funded by the power industry, and that was named by federal regulators in July as the new watchdog group in charge of overseeing the rules for operating the nation's power grid, issued a grim report that confirmed an investigative story first reported by Truthout in August: three years after a devastating blackout left 50 million people in the dark in the Northeastern United States and parts of Canada for nearly three days, and forced the closure of the New York Stock Exchange, nothing substantial has been done to overhaul the country's dilapidated power grid.

"The adequacy of North America's electricity system will decline unless changes are made soon," said Rick Sergel, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Council. "Our economy and quality of life are more reliant on electricity every day, yet the operation and planning for a reliable and adequate electricity system is becoming increasingly difficult. The transmission system requires additional investment to address reliability issues and economic impacts. Expansion and strengthening of the transmission system continues to lag demand growth and expansion of generating resources in most areas."

Today, the US power grid - three interconnected grids made up of 3,500 utilities serving 283 million people - STILL HANGS TOGETHER BY A THREAD. The slightest glitch on the transmission superhighway could upset the smooth distribution of electricity over thousands of miles of transmission lines and darken states from Ohio to New York in a matter of seconds, bringing hospitals and airports to a standstill and putting an untold number of lives at risk.

Immediately following the blackout on August 14, 2003, President Bush said publicly that he would see to it that the nation's aging power grid was quicklyupdated in order to avoid future blackouts and to handle the increase in demand. Congress called for spending of up to $100 billion to reduce severe transmission bottlenecks and increase capacity so the transmission lines could carry additional electricity from power plants to homes and businesses. But the money that would have funded a reliable power grid was spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan..................

Bush will be out of office in a couple of years, and do you really think it darkens his heart for him to think about JUST WHO is going to pay for the illegal and ongoing wars he started, the nation's overstressed power grid, or anything else for that matter, while he is enjoying a retirement of riches untold, and a lifestyle of wellbeing, all provided by US taxpayers, for the rest of his life. He and his crew have taken our country in completely the wrong direction, and its unbelievable that he will be reward like this for the many travesties of his time in office, and will be allowed to live large, at the expense of our nation's economic stability, at the expense of our shattered national reputation around the world, and at the expense of so many dead men and woman, who's deaths the policies of this man precipitated, without any " honorable cause " behind his actions.