George W. Bush doesn't hate the earth -- hey, he favors the development of clean-burning hydrogen cars!

And how does he want to generate the hydrogen for those hydrogen cars?

Nuclear power!

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Daniel Hirsch and George M. Woodwell explain:

Buried in the president's energy budget proposal is a "nuclear hydrogen initiative." Building upon it, the energy bill hashed out behind closed doors by congressional Republicans includes $1.1 billion to construct an atomic reactor in Idaho to produce hydrogen.

That's right. Nuclear hydrogen. Who says these guys don't have a sense of humor? A public that yearns for, and has now been promised, "pollution-free" energy will be given instead something that produces plutonium, strontium, cesium and dozens of other highly toxic radioactive waste products.

There are more goodies for the nuclear industry in the energy bill (which is two Senate votes away from becoming law), including $6 billion to stimulate construction of reactors, and a reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act,

the most extraordinary piece of corporate socialist legislation in U.S. history. Price-Anderson immunizes the nuclear industry from as much as 99 percent of the liability it might face in case of a serious release of radioactivity in a major accident.

Oh, and

the conference committee's rewrite of the energy bill inexplicably relaxes protections against nuclear terrorism.

Terrific!

(Thanks to Green Boy at Needlenose for this.)