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North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry objected to a million-dollar plan in the House energy bill (HR 2776) that democrats passed Saturday to promote bicycling as a means of energy conservation, including a $20/mo tax break for bike commuters

McHenry (seen here shoveling some), told his fellow Reps: Some might argue that depending on bicycles to solve our energy crisis is naive, perhaps ridiculous. Some might even say Congress should use this energy legislation to create new energy, bring new nuclear power plants on line, use clean coal technology, energy exploration, but no, no. They want to tell the American people, stop driving, ride a bike. This is absolutely amazing... Stay tuned for the next big idea for the Democrats: Improving energy efficiency by the horse and buggy.

McHenry might be interested to know that, according to surveys, 40-60% of Americans would walk or bike to work and errands if they could. Let say that just 10% of Americans rode two miles a day, instead of driving. Besides getting a little exercise, those 30 million people would be saving (assuming the US average of 21mpg) about 2.85 million gallons of gasoline per day (out of an average of 400 million gallons consumed every day.), or saving almost $3 billion per year (at the current average of $2.75/gal).

Meanwhile, McHenry is pushing a $129,000 earmark for the "Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree."

McHenry was so proud of his HR 2776 performance on Capitol Hill that posted himself.

Via The Goat

Comments

[gregflynn]

Don't worry, people are working to expose and retire him at Pat Go Bye Bye and BlueNC and Scrutiny Hooligans and, believe it or not, North Carolina Conservative. This is a bipartisan effort.