George W. Bush on Energy & Oil President of the United States, Former Republican Governor (TX)

Sub-sections under Energy & Oil:
• Global Warming
• Other issues under Energy & Oil

FactCheck: US grew more dependent on foreign oil under Bush

The US imported 60% of its oil and petroleum products during the first 11 months of last year, up from just under 53% in President Clinton's last year in office. Last year, of all the oil and petroleum products consumed in the US, 11.2% came from Persian Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources. And we are on the threshold of incredible advances. So tonight I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22% increase in clean-energy research

Replace 75% of oil imports from Mideast by 2025

End America's addiction to oil

The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources. And we are on the threshold of incredible advances. So tonight I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22% increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants; revolutionary solar and wind technologies; and clean, safe nuclear energy.

We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen.

Safe nuclear energy & less dependence on foreign energy

O'Neill: Industry overruled environment in energy taskforce

Energy plan is about reducing oil imports, not cheap energy

But if Bush was no energy free-marketeer, neither did he share the crusading zeal of the environmental Left. For Bush, the point of energy conservation was not for Americans to USE less, but for Americans to IMPORT less. For him, energy was first and foremost a national security issue. He had warned in 2000, "As a result of our foreign oil imports skyrocketing, America is at the mercy more than ever of foreign governments and cartels."

Incentives for high-mileage cars, but drill for more oil

More exploration, more nuclear, more energy research

Make Amtrak more efficient and competitive

A: Our national railroad network is a crucial component of our public transportation system. I support a healthy intercity passenger rail system. I support current efforts to make Amtrak more efficient and competitive. I believe these efforts will result in better, more extensive and more reliant rail service for the millions of Americans who travel by train.

Natural gas is hemispheric; find it in our own neighborhood

When the electric power squeeze hit California last month, he said, “The quickest way to have impact on the energy situation is for us to work with Mexico, and a certain extent Canada, to build a policy for the hemisphere.“ Last week, he said, ”We need more product, and it doesn’t matter where the product comes from.“ Mexico has plenty of natural gas and oil in the ground but lacks the technology and money to exploit them fully. Mexico’s president says he welcomes foreign investment, but first he must persuade Mexico’s Congress to allow a mix of public ownership and private development in energy production.

Clarify rules to allow for more nuclear power generation

A: Nuclear power plays an important role in meeting the energy needs of the New Economy, supplying over 20% of electricity consumed. As part of my energy policy, I would clarify IRS rules to make it easier for companies that specialize in operating nuclear power plants to purchase them from companies that do not. My overall energy policy also includes using diplomatic leverage, working with our allies, OPEC, and other oil-producing countries to ensure greater stability in world oil markets. I will also encourage greater exploration at home including opening the ANWR up to environmentally responsible exploration. We must also develop our natural gas resources, which are clean-burning and hemispheric in nature, not subject to whims of OPEC. I will also promote renewable sources of energy as part of my agenda because the New Economy is very electric-intensive.

Better to drill ANWR than import oil from Saddam Hussein

BUSH: We need an active exploration program in America. The only way to become less dependent on foreign sources of crude oil is to explore at home. And you bet I want to open up a small part of Alaska because when that field is online, it will produce a million barrels a day. Today we import a million barrels from Saddam Hussein. I would rather that a million come from our own hemisphere, our own country, as opposed from Saddam Hussein.

Replenish energy supplies with new domestic coal & pipelines

GORE [to Bush]: We have to free ourselves from big oil, from OPEC. We have to give new incentives for the development of resources, like deep gas in the western Gulf, but also renewable sources of energy and domestic sources that are cleaner and better. I’m proposing a plan that will give tax incentives for the rapid development of new kinds of cars, trucks, buses, factories, boilers, and furnaces that don’t have as much pollution.

BUSH: I want to build pipelines to move natural gas. I want to develop coal resources. It’s an issue I know a lot about. I was a small oil person for a while. This is an administration that’s had no plan. And now, the results of having no plan have caught up with America. We’ve got abundant supplies of energy here, and we better start exploring it. There’s an interesting issue up in the Northwest, as well. And that is whether or not we remove dams that propose hydroelectric energy. I’m against removing dams in the Northwest.

Use ANWR fees for alternative energy and home oil help

The energy proposals offered by Bush today, some of which are new and some of which he had unveiled earlier, total $7.1 billion over 10 years. Of that, $3.1 billion would come from new revenue, including royalties and bid fees.

Look for oil in US rather than tap into emergency reserves

Remove federal impediments to states’ clean energy

A: I would remove federal impediments, such as unclear jurisdiction over who is responsible for grid reliability, to help states be able to deregulate their electric industries effectively. This way states’ green power can be identified and rewarded. As governor, I presided over an electric deregulation bill that brings competition to Texas residents, makes mandatory emissions reductions from older power plants, and calls for 2,000 megawatts of new renewable energy by 2009, making Texas the largest market for renewable energy in the country. The Environmental Defense Fund calls this Texas law ‘the strongest in the nation.“‘

Explore ANWR; explore for gas; reduce foreign dependence

Wean from oil, via electric deregulation & natural gas

The Kyoto Treaty would have cost America a lot of jobs

KERRY: The Kyoto Treaty was flawed. I was in Kyoto and I was part of that; I know what happened. But Bush didn't try to fix it, he just declared it dead, ladies and gentlemen. And we walked away from the work of 160 nations over 10 years. You wonder why it is that people don't like us in some parts of the world. You just say, Hey, we don't agree with you, good-bye. Bush's done nothing to try to fix it. I will.

Kyoto Treaty is the "emperor with no clothes"

Bush would have none of that. If there was anything he hated, it was charades. He forthrightly announced he would not support the treaty and would instead devote funds to study how to reduce global warming through less drastic measures, including building more environmentally friendly vehicles.

"The emperor Kyoto was running around for a long time, and he was naked," Andy Card said. "It took President Bush to say, 'The guy doesn't have any clothes on.'" European nations, in particular, were incensed that Bush rejected the Kyoto treaty. The French environment minister called it a "scandal." Yet none of those countries had agreed to honor the treaty.

$1.7 billion program will make hydrogen cars common by 2020

Energy production overrules CO2 emissions

$1.2B to develop hydrogen fuel via private partnerships

Reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18% over next decade

Rejected CO2 trading permits as solution to global warming

The green-green-lima-beans (as Bush called the enviros) had prevailed. Bush handed responsibility for the climate change brief to two midlevel aides who were absolutely convinced that the lima-beans had it right. They cobbled together an ambitious program of controls and trading permits intended to lower American carbon dioxide emissions by almost as much as Kyoto demanded, without international supervision or payoffs to foreign entities.

Their policy was tossed aside, their [proposed] speech was ripped to shreds, and a new one was hastily cobbled together that promised to take the issue seriously-and study it some more. [A press leak described them as] "a contingent of greens inside the administration, pressing the president to look more and more like Al Gore."

Solution to global warming is safe & clean nuclear power

Bush believed that technological problems demanded ultratechnological solutions. Again and again, in public and in private, he observed longingly that while the US obtained only 20% of its power from nukes, France obtained 80%. If the US could catch even halfway up to France, it could overfulfill its Kyoto commitments-without changing the American way of life at all.

The most daunting problem was waste disposal. Bush gave the order: The waste would go to Yucca Mountain. The US nuclear industry could grow again.

Abandons campaign pledge to reduce CO2 emissions

Environmentalists said Bush had ignored a finding by more than 3,000 international scientists who concurred that the gas is one of the main causes of global warming. Last week, satellite data showed evidence that greenhouse gases were indeed building up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

In New England, Bush’s abandonment of the campaign pledge to propose regulating carbon dioxide emissions probably will have limited impact, because the region is less dependent than elsewhere on power plants fired by coal or oil. Administration officials said Bush had made a mistake in the campaign by promising to regulate carbon dioxide.

CO2 is not a pollutant under CAA; no emission caps

I support a comprehensive and balanced national energy policy. I do not believe, however, that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a “pollutant” under the Clean Air Act. Including caps on carbon dioxide emissions as part of a multiple emissions strategy would lead to an even more dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly higher electricity prices. This is especially true given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change and the lack of commercially available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide.

Scientists are unsure about global warming

BUSH: It’s an issue that we need to take very seriously. I don’t think we know the solution to global warming yet and I don’t think we’ve got all the facts before we make decisions.

GORE: But I disagree that we don’t know the cause of global warming. I think that we do. It’s pollution, carbon dioxide and other chemicals that are even more potent. Look, the world’s temperatures going up, weather patterns are changing, storms are getting more violent and unpredictable. And what are we going to tell our children?

BUSH: Yeah, I agree. Some of the scientists, I believe, haven’t they been changing their opinion a little bit on global warming? There’s a lot of differing opinions and before we react I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place.

Kyoto Treaty puts too much burden on US

BUSH: It’s an issue that we need to take very seriously. But I’m not going to let the US carry the burden for cleaning up the world’s air, like the Kyoto treaty would have done. China and India were exempted from that treaty.

Q: The Senate did turn it down.

BUSH: 99 to nothing.

GORE: A lot of supporters of the Kyoto treaty actually ended up voting for that because of the way it was worded, but there’s no doubt there’s a lot of opposition to it in the Senate.

Opposes Kyoto treaty, ESA, & other intrusive regulations

Voluntary partnerships reduce greenhouse gases economically.

Considering the evidence and the risks of both overreaction and underreaction, the Governors recommend that the federal government continue its climate research, including regional climate research, to improve scientific understanding of global climate change. The Governors also recommend taking steps that are cost-effective and offer other social and economic benefits beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, the Governors support voluntary partnerships to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while achieving other economic and environmental goals.
• The Governors are committed to working in partnership with the federal government, businesses, environmental groups, and others to develop and implement voluntary programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in conjunction with conserving energy, protecting the environment, and strengthening the economy.
• The Governors urge that those who have successfully achieved reductions of greenhouse emissions receive appropriate credit for their early actions. The Governors strongly encourage these kinds of voluntary efforts.
• The Governors believe that federally required implementation of any treaty provisions, including those that mandate limits or reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, must not occur before the U.S. Senate ratifies an international agreement and Congress passes enabling legislation.
• The Governors support continued federal funding for research and development technology in this area. They also believe it is essential to engage the private sector by fostering technology partnerships between industry and government. Public-private partnerships serve to achieve desired environmental goals, speed the introduction of new technologies to the marketplace, and meet consumer needs and product affordability goals, while avoiding market distortions and job losses.

Kyoto Treaty must include reductions by all countries.

The Governors recommend that the federal government continue to seek the advice of state and local officials and nongovernmental organizations with expertise in economic, trade, jobs, public health, and environmental issues and assess the potential economic and environmental consequences of proposed policies and measures, including a thorough and broadly accepted analysis of costs and benefits. The Governors recommend that the US:
• not sign or ratify any agreement that mandates new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the US, unless such an agreement mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for developing countries within the same compliance period;
• aggressively undertake strategies for including emissions-reduction commitments from developing countries;
• not sign or ratify any agreement that would result in serious harm to the US economy;
• support flexible policies and measures in continuing negotiations that provide an opportunity for the US to meet global environmental goals without jeopardizing US jobs, trade, or economic competitiveness;
• insist on flexible implementation timetables in continuing negotiations that permit affected parties adequate time to plan strategies for meeting commitments; and
• ensure that no single sector, state, or nation is disproportionately disadvantaged by the implementation of international policies.