EnviroWonk writer Samantha Hulkower is blogging from the WIREC conference this week

Screw punctuality -- being perpetually late has finally paid off! We had intended to get to the Convention Center at a reasonable time Wednesday morning (reasonable considering we don't generally have to be up before 9 a.m.) to check out the the exhibits and collect free pens. But after staying up late Tuesday night to find out who won Texas, we were beat. Just as we were about to leave the house at 11 a.m., a friend called, complaining the Convention Center was shut down for President Bush and no one would be allowed in for at least another half hour. Yes!

Before we get into all the cool (and lame) stuff we went home with today, let's spend some time on Bush's WIREC speech. He began with the obvious:"Some countries we get oil from don't particularly like us," and that threatens our national security. But the president is also a man of solutions, like "We gotta get off oil." And, while he played up corn-based ethanol, he also acknowledged that even though corn farmers are benefiting from higher corn prices, not everyone is happy. He talked up the $1 billion the government is spending to make cellulosic ethanol, the kind made from agricultural waste and other non-edible plants like switchgrass, to make it more cost-competitive with corn ethanol.

Bush attributed higher corn prices to increased food prices, although reports show that the cost of food is dependent of many variables, and higher corn prices are the least of those factors. More than ethanol, higher oil prices that make food transportation more expensive, and the fact that there is more and more livestock being bred to keep up with developing nation appetites for meat, the demand for corn for animal feed is three times that than for ethanol production.

Bush also spent some time talking about nuclear power, which is not part of the WIREC agenda (nuclear power not being very renewable and all). He advocated developing nations start utilizing nuclear energy, because that would reduce the demand on oil and make it cheaper (cheaper for others- we're gettin' off oil), not to mention, "help protect the environment."

There are rumors that Bush is spending more of hisrenewable energy on environmental issues in his last year in office in order to strengthen his legacy. But since history is going to judge Bush on Iraq and not much else, maybe he should do something like focus Iraq's economy not on oil production, but, say, solar energy. It is a desert after all.

A move like that could lessen some of the speculation that we invaded Iraq to get its oil, and provide tons of green collar jobs to keep young Iraqi citizens employed and less susceptible to the idea of blowing themselves (and others) up.