Wind power will be used to fuel the flame of Lady Liberty’s torch – a powerful symbol of the United States’ growing commitment to clean energy. The Bush administration’s U.S. National Parks Service [1] is contracting a local energy supplier to supply three years’ worth of clean, green wind power from upstate New York to light up the patriotic statue [2], as well as the nearby Ellis Island museum [3] and several other sites, according to GreenBiz.com [4].

Environmentalists are protesting that the symbolic statement is just a ruse to cover up for a meager effort to promote energy alternatives: "The president's pollsters are telling him that high energy prices and his drill-only energy policy are driving his job-approval numbers down. So he's decided to go out and tell Americans what the polls tell him they want to hear," Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust [5], said in a recent article in the Mail & Gurdian [6]. "It's just the same old oil guy doing photo ops at solar plants."

Photo credit: Visit-New-York-City.com [7]