How a Hypocrite Celebrates Earth Day

A true believer on Earth Day would probably stay home, turn off all his lights and do his best not to use any energy. Maybe he’d go outside and clean up debris from the side of the road or plant a tree. A true believer certainly wouldn’t waste 9,000 gallons of jet fuel for a photo-op.

The press office at Andrews AFB wouldn’t give me the fuel consumption numbers for the 747 that serves as Air Force One without the approval of the White House Press Office, which as I write this has yet to be given.

But Boeing says its 747 burns about 5 gallons of fuel per mile. It’s 895 miles from Washington to Des Moines, so a round trip brings the fuel consumption for the fixed-wing portion of the President’s trip to 8,950 gallons.

The trip also put President Obama on Marine One for round-trip flights between the White House and Andrews AFB and between Des Moines International Airport and Newton, Iowa, site of his Earth Day speech. It totaled about an hour of flight time. The VH-3D that serves as Marine One consumes about 1200 pounds of fuel per hour which comes out to about 166 gallons consumed flying the President today.

So while he was pimping windmills in Iowa, and lecturing naughty Americans for things like driving and using lights, he was burning more fuel than most of us burn in a year. President Obama takes hypocrisy to a whole new level. And that’s not counting the fact that We the People paid for this trip. So much for tightening our belts and having  “skin in the game.”