The president of the oil industry, I mean the United States, this week announced long-awaited plans to deal with the energy crisis in the United States. Little that Mr George W Bush had to say was a surprise but that did not prevent an outcry globally against his plans to increase coal and oil production and resurrect the nuclear industry while paying lip service to the idea of conservation.

The only surprise is that people are surprised. One only has to run through Mr Bush's cabinet to realise the influence of the oil industry on the administration; anyone hoping otherwise can only have been deluded by the posturing of pre-election campaigning.

What is interesting about Mr Bush's response to the evident crisis is its avoidance of addressing harsh realities. Certainly, the United States, which is the largest user of power worldwide, cannot continue to grow that usage at current rates unless it radically expands its network and supplies. The trouble is that there is no incentive to conserve. Fuel prices are, by European standards, ridiculously low and there is no genuine effort to reduce energy consumption or to look at cleaner alternatives. There are no votes in the US in telling people to tighten their belts on power.

Until now, of course, there have been no votes in putting power lines and plants across people's land, which is how California got into its current power crisis. Still, Mr Bush probably gauges the country's mood correctly when he imagines it would sooner live next to a nuclear power plant than forsake cheap and limitless power.