Word: btu
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...public isn't yet ready to back painful measures to combat global warming, but contend that a political donnybrook led by the Vice President, even in a losing cause, would raise awareness. Not so, says Gore. "We lost the fight in 1993," he observes, referring to the far-reaching "BTU tax" on fuels that went down to defeat. "We're not yet winning the fight for the proposals we have now. Losing on impractical proposals that are completely out of tune with what is achievable does not necessarily advance your cause at all," and could set it back by convincing...
...contrast, politics has worked against greenhouse-gas reductions. A Clinton proposal for a new energy levy--the so-called BTU tax--was scuttled by Congress in 1993. And the Republican takeover in 1994 made it essentially impossible for the President to impose any serious measures that could be seen as antibusiness, such as energy taxes, harsher emissions limits on factories or stricter auto-mileage standards. At the same time, the economy began to grow faster than anyone expected, boosting the release of greenhouse gases as factories churned out more goods...
...shoes up 25%; even men's clothing, usually a dog, is way up. Orem can't keep enough shotguns and rifles in stock. Though he carries five sizes of air conditioner, the only one that's moving is the largest and most expensive--the 12,000-BTU model. Curtains and bedding are up 20%, a trend that tips him off. "When the economy picks up, people are going to start updating the inside of their home," he says. "I know. My wife's killing me on that...
...Federal bureaucracy, Kerrey warns, "is the most formidable enemy of all sometimes." (Is this the same Bob Kerrey who not long ago proposed a federal takeover of health insurance?) And here's Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, bragging that he was "leader in the fight that stopped the BTU tax." That's shorthand for the energy tax. Readers will recall that the leader in the effort to advance it was Bill Clinton...
Some of the damage, typically, was self-inflicted; Clinton suffered another attack of premature capitulation. (He had a bad bout of it last year during the budget fight, junking his proposed BTU tax at the first sign of protest and backing off grazing-fee increases when Western Senators threatened to stampede.) The latest relapse hit, not coincidentally, when the National Governors' Association met in Washington last weekend. Clinton considers himself a lifetime member of the N.G.A. and sometimes forgets that Governors are not as important to him now, compared with members of Congress. In White House meetings, Clinton stunned allies...