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aceventura3 · 07-17-2008, 11:18 AM

Here is an excerpt from a speech Bush gave outlining his energy plan over 7 years ago. Too bad he never got the support he needed from Congress to get it done.

Quote:

Following are excerpts from President Bush's speech on energy policy yesterday in St. Paul, as recorded by The New York Times:

To protect the environment, to meet our growing energy needs, to improve our quality of life, America needs an energy plan that faces up to our energy challenges and meets them. Vice President Cheney and many members of my cabinet spent months analyzing our problems and seeking solutions. The result is a comprehensive series of more than 100 recommendations that light the way to a brighter future through energy that is abundant and reliable, cleaner and more affordable. The plan addresses all three key aspects of the energy equation: demand, supply and the means to match them.

First, it reduces demand by promoting innovation and technology to make us the world leader in efficiency and conservation. Second, it expands and diversifies America's supply of all sources of energy: oil and gas, clean coal, solar, wind, biomass, hydropower and other renewables, as well as safe and clean nuclear power. Third and finally, the report outlines the ways to bring producers and consumers together by modernizing the networks of pipes and wires that link the power plant to the outlet on the wall.

Our new energy plan begins with a 21st-century focus on conservation. The American entrepreneurial system constantly invents ways to do more with less. We pack more and more computing power onto a chip; we carry more and more messages over a cable; and we squeeze more and more power out of a barrel of oil or a cubic foot of natural gas. A new refrigerator you buy today, for example, uses 65 percent less electricity than one that was made 20 years ago. Over all, we use 40 percent less energy to produce new goods and services than we did in 1973.

But this steady improvement slowed in the 1990's. Our energy plan will speed up progress on conservation where it has slowed and restart it where it has failed. It will underwrite research and development into energy-saving technology. It will require manufacturers to build more energy-efficient appliances. We will review and remove the obstacles that prevent business from investing in energy-efficient technologies. . . .

Conservation does not mean doing without. Thanks to new technology, it can mean doing better and smarter and cheaper. Innovation helps us all make better choices. Smart electric meters can tell homeowners how they're using power and how they might reduce their monthly electric bill. Sensors can turn off lights when people leave a room. And innovation is bringing us transmission wires that waste less of the electricity they carry from plant to home or to office.

Conservation on a wide scale takes more than good ideas. It takes capital investment. Outdated buildings and factories have to be upgraded or replaced to consume less and pollute less. And here some well-intentioned regulations have created a Catch-22. Procedures intended to protect the environment have too often blocked environmental progress by discouraging companies from installing newer and cleaner equipment.

Wise regulation and American innovation will make this country the world's leader in energy efficiency and conservation in the 21st century. Our goal is to use less additional energy to fuel more economic growth. And I know we can do so. I also know that conservation is the result of millions of good choices made across our land on a daily basis. Yet even as we grow more efficient, even as this nation achieves the objectives in conservation, we will always require some additional energy to power our expanding economy. We learned that from the California experience.

California has been an impressive conservation leader. It is the second-most energy-efficient state in the union. But California has not built a major new power plant in a decade. And not even the most admirable conservation effort could keep up with the state's demand for electricity.

So the second part of our energy plan will be to expand and diversify our nation's energy supplies. Diversity is important, not only for energy security but also for national security. Over dependence on any one source of energy, especially a foreign source, leaves us vulnerable to price shocks, supply interruptions and in the worst case, blackmail.

America today imports 52 percent of all our oil. If we don't take action, those imports will only grow. As long as cars and trucks run on gasoline, we will need oil, and we should produce more of it at home. New technology makes drilling for oil far more productive, as well as environmentally friendly, than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Here is a result of one study and I quote: ''Improvements over the past 40 years have dramatically reduced the industry's footprint on the fragile tundra, minimized waste produced and protected the land for resident and migratory wildlife.''

Those aren't my words. Those are the words of the Department of Energy's study conducted during my predecessor's administration. Advanced new technologies allow entrepreneurs and risk-takers to find oil and to extract it in ways that leave nature undisturbed. Where oil is found underneath sensitive landscapes, rigs can stand miles away from the oil field and tap a reservoir at an angle. In Arctic sites like A.N.W.R., we can build roads of ice that literally melt away when summer comes and the drilling then stops to protect wildlife. A.N.W.R. can produce 600,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 40 years. What difference does 600,000 barrels a day make? Well, that happens to be exactly the amount we import from Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

We're not just short of oil, we're short of the refineries that turn oil into fuel. So while the rest of our economy is functioning at 82 percent of capacity, our refineries are gasping at 96 percent of capacity.

A single accident, a single shutdown can send prices of gasoline and heating oil spiraling all over the country. The major reason for dramatic increase in gasoline prices today is the lack of refining capacity. And my plan gives the needed flexibility and certainty so refiners will make the investments necessary to expand supply by increasing capacity.

And America needs to generate more electricity. The Department of Energy estimates that America will need between 1,300 and 1,900 new power plants over the next two decades. A high-tech economy is a high-electricity consumption economy. Even the sleekest laptop needs to plug into an electrical outlet from time to time.

More than half of the electricity generated in America today comes from coal. If we weren't blessed with this natural resource we would face even greater shortages and higher prices today. Yet coal presents an environmental challenge. So our plan funds research into new clean-coal technologies. It calls on Congress to enact strict new multipollutant legislation to reduce emissions from electric power plants.

My administration's energy plan anticipates that most new electric plants will be fueled by the cleanest of all fossil fuels, natural gas. Our nation and our hemisphere are rich in natural gas resources. But our ability to develop gas resources has been hampered by restrictions on natural gas exploration. Our ability to deliver gas to consumers has been hindered by opposition to construction of new pipelines that today are more safe and more efficient. I will call on Congress to pass legislation to bring more gas to market while improving pipeline safety and safeguarding the environment.

America should also expand a clean and unlimited source of energy: nuclear power. Many Americans may not realize that nuclear power already provides one-fifth of this nation's electricity, safely and without air pollution. But the last American nuclear power plant to enter operation was ordered in 1973.

In contrast, France, our friend and ally, gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. By renewing and expanding existing nuclear facilities we can generate tens of thousands of megawatts of electricity at a reasonable cost, without pumping a gram of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. New reactor designs are even safer and more economical than the reactors we possess today. And my energy plan directs the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the best science to move expeditiously to find a safe and permanent repository for nuclear waste.

Our energy plan also supports the development of new and renewable sources of energy. It recommends tax credits to homeowners who invest in solar homes, and to utilities that build wind turbines or harness biomass and other environmentally friendly forms of power. It removes impediments to the development of hydroelectricity. It proposes incentives to buy new cars that run on alternative fuels like ethanol, that consume less oil and therefore pollute less. It supports research into fuel cells, a technology of tomorrow that can power a car with hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, and emit only steam as a waste product.

In all these ways, we will expand the diversity of our energy supply. But as with conservation, new energy supply alone is not the whole answer. There's a third element we must address: modernizing the network that delivers the supply to the point of demand. . . .

And here, too, technology will make a big difference. Electricity markets used to be localized because wires could not carry electrical current over long distances. More and better wires can efficiently ship power across the country, reducing the threat of local blackouts or outages.

And it's just not our electricity delivery system that has fallen behind. The energy report projects that natural gas consumption will rise rapidly as electric utilities make greater and greater use of this environmentally friendly fuel. We will need newer, cleaner and safer pipes to move these larger quantities of natural gas -- up to 38,000 new miles of pipe and 263,000 miles of distribution lines.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=&pagewanted=1

Also here is a link to his 2001 plan.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/Nat...rgy-Policy.pdf

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Before some of you try to rewrite history - The Senate (controlled by Democrats at the time) and the House never acted on Bush's plan, they did try to develop their own plans, they never reached agreement and nothing passed, then or when Democrats took control of the House and had control of the Senate. So the next time you hear Reid or Pelosi talk about Bush's failed energy plan, ask them to look in a mirror and stop with the B.S.