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September 30, 2000, Saturday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 1; National
Desk
LENGTH: 1629 words
HEADLINE: THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE TEXAS GOVERNOR;
Bush, in Energy Plan, Endorses New U.S. Drilling to Curb Prices
BYLINE: By FRANK BRUNI
DATELINE: SAGINAW, Mich., Sept. 29
BODY:
Gov. George W. Bush outlined a wide-ranging
energy plan today that called for more domestic fuel production, better
relations with foreign oil suppliers and opening the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge for drilling, all of which he framed as potential remedies for
rising oil and gas prices.
Mr. Bush
said the plan, which also included incentives for developing alternative energy
sources and clean-burning fuels, reflected his determination to limit the
country's vulnerability to the international oil market and to avert escalating
prices and energy shortages. But it also gave Mr. Bush, the Texas governor, an
opportunity to attack Vice President Al Gore on the heels of Mr. Gore's call
last week for the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Mr. Bush
characterized this step, which President Clinton indeed took, as proof of how
shortsighted the Clinton administration had been.
"They have had seven
and a half years to develop a sound energy policy," Mr. Bush said. "They have
had every chance to avoid the situation that confronts us today. And now they
have nothing but excuses, bad ideas and -- as the clock runs out -- one last
ploy."
In a sign of the issue's sudden potency, Mr. Gore and his running
mate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, rearranged their schedules so they could
deliver their own remarks on energy and the environment. Both said Mr. Bush's
plans for the Arctic refuge would cause irreversible environmental damage. Page
A13.
The political cross-fire was intense. Mr. Bush, in a speech to
workers at a plant here that produces machinery for car manufacturers, cast Mr.
Gore as a liberal extremist -- and a slightly loopy one at that. The terms he
used were tailored to Michigan, a swing state economically dependent on the
automobile industry.
"The administration seems never to have concerned
itself with the domestic energy supply, except to tax, regulate and therefore
diminish it," Mr. Bush said. "The vice president likes electric cars -- he just
doesn't like making electricity. In speeches, he calls autoworkers his friends.
In his book, he declares the engines they make an enemy."
Although Mr.
Bush had drawn the contours of his positions on energy issues before, he filled
them in with new details today, and he put the price of his proposals at $7.1
billion over 10 years.
Of Mr. Bush's proposals, the most contentious is
the opening of the Arctic refuge, about 19 million acres of wilderness in
northeast Alaska that is home to caribou, bears, musk oxen and migratory birds.
Mr. Bush specified that he wanted to allow oil exploration in only 8
percent of this federally owned land and insisted it could be done in an
environmentally sensitive manner.
Environmental watchdog organizations
vigorously disagreed, and said the polluting effects of drilling would spread
wide and far.
Adam Kalton, the Arctic campaign director of the Alaska
Wilderness League, likened the opening of the refuge for oil drilling to
"damming the Grand Canyon for hydroelectric power or capping Old Faithful in
Yellowstone for geothermal power." And Mr. Kalton said it would not produce a
significant amount of oil for American consumers for more than five years.
While portions of the wildlife preserve are spectacularly beautiful, the
coastal plain -- the 1.5 million-acre section along the Beaufort Sea where the
drilling would take place -- is flat, largely featureless and frozen much of the
year. But to environmentalists, its unspoiled desolation, and its role in the
complex ecosystem of the North Slope, argue for leaving it untouched.
Mr. Bush also said he would instruct the Department of Energy to
identify other federal lands that could be opened to oil and natural gas
exploration, which many environmentalists also oppose.
He did not call
for more offshore oil drilling and had previously indicated his opposition to
new leases for such drilling along the coasts of Florida and California, two
states with many electoral votes and pockets of strong opposition against the
practice.
Mr. Bush repeatedly alluded today to the administration's move
to release 30 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserve, a resource
usually seen as a fallback during times of war or major supply disruptions. Mr.
Bush called the current release "a calculated political move" and noted its
timing "just weeks before an election."
But his speech and plan were
much broader than that accusation. They criticized what he said was an
increasing dependence in this country on foreign oil, forecast rapidly rising
demands for energy and delineated a variety of ways to meet those demands.
"This administration tries to take credit for our economy," Mr. Bush
said. "But they seem too have forgotten what makes it run. Even today -- in our
new, high-tech economy -- America runs on oil and gas and coal gained from the
earth and water held behind our dams."
Continuing a weeklong effort to
wrest the issue of prosperity from Mr. Gore, Mr. Bush warned that the absence of
a comprehensive energy plan, which he said the Clinton administration had never
developed, was an invitation to economic gloom.
"Our nation has had
three recessions in the last generation," Mr. Bush said, "and each one was tied
to an energy shock."
His plan also contained an array of other proposals
intended to please a variety of constituencies. Mr. Bush called for an
additional $1 billion over 10 years for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance
Program, which helps low-income people with their heating and cooling costs. He
also called for $1.4 billion over 10 years in additional federal financing for
federal and state programs that encourage energy conservation.
Expressing a concern for clean air, Mr. Bush proposed an investment of
$2 billion over 10 years for research into "clean coal" technologies; tax
credits of $1.4 billion over 10 years for companies that produced electricity
from renewable and alternative fuels, and legislation requiring electric
utilities to reduce harmful emissions.
Mr. Bush said he would channel
the billions of dollars the federal government would receive from the oil
companies that went into the Arctic refuge toward land conservation efforts and
research into alternative energy resources.
One advocacy group,
Environmental Defense, even while voicing opposition to drilling in the Arctic
refuge, praised Mr. Bush for suggesting steps to cut down on pollution.
Mr. Bush also sought to tailor his plans to the high-tech world. He said
the equipment needed to power the Internet consumes 8 percent of all the
electricity produced in the United States, and he pledged to promote the
production of more electricity to meet that demand.
But he also promised
to use diplomacy to persuade OPEC to pump more oil and to increase oil imports
from other areas of the world. He also called for an annual meeting of the
energy ministers of the leading industrialized nations to "encourage
international energy cooperation."
Democrats have characterized both Mr.
Bush, a former oilman in Texas, and his running mate, Dick Cheney, the former
chief executive of the world's largest oil-fields services company, as pawns of
the oil industry.
Kym Spell, a spokeswoman for the Gore campaign,
charged today that portions of Mr. Bush's plan were "of big oil, by big oil and
for big oil."
But in an interview today, Mr. Cheney said that his
experience in the oil business convinced him that it was possible to explore for
oil without harming the environment.
"For us to fall into the trap that
either we develop energy resources or you have a clean environment -- I think is
a mistake," he said in an interview on Political Points, a Webcast produced by
ABC News and The New York Times.
"One of the things I learned during my
time in the private sector over the course of the last several years," Mr.
Cheney said, "is that technologies have become very good at allowing us to
develop resources that we couldn't have developed a few years ago, in ways that
are environmentally safer than they were a few years ago."
And part of
what Mr. Bush was trying to accomplish today was the portrayal of his and Mr.
Cheney's professional backgrounds in a positive light.
When Mr. Bush's
wife, Laura, introduced him to the crowd in Saginaw, she said that because he
had grown up in Midland, Tex., and later worked in the oil business there, he
had an especially keen understanding of the energy industry.
In
His Own Words
GEORGE W. BUSH
Remarks in a speech in Saginaw,
Mich., yesterday outlining his energy policy:
"So America must have
an energy policy that plans for the future, but meets the needs of today. Here,
as elsewhere, the voters have a clear choice. Here, as elsewhere, the contrast
is stark. My plan opens the door to more energy to fuel a growing economy and a
new economy. We take the path of exploration and innovation and national
self-reliance.
My opponent takes a different path. In a long Washington
career, he has supported higher energy taxes and higher energy prices, more
regulation and more central controls. In 1993, my
opponent cast the
tie-breaking vote in the Senate to raise gasoline taxes.
He is proud of
that vote and everything else he has done to place limits on energy. That year,
he wanted an even greater tax -- the so-called B.T.U. tax -- one that his own
administration figured would cost the typical consumer $320 a year.
All
this comes from a certain view of the world.
See, my opponent believes
the consumption of energy is the problem and must be discouraged -- by taxes and
regulations. It helps explain why he has never made energy production a
priority. It is the reason he views American oil producers as adversaries and
the automobile as a threat."
http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC: Photo: Gov. George W. Bush visited the
Wright-K Technical company in Saginaw, Mich., yesterday, and the company's
president, John Sivey, right, gave him a shirt to symbolize solidarity with
blue-collar workers. (Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times)(pg. A13)
Chart: "Debating Energy Policy"
The candidates have distinctly different
approaches to an issue they see as affecting all consumers.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Stresses efforts to increase energy supplies,
primarily crude oil.
Would open sections of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to exploration.
Opposes use of
Strategic Petroleum Reserve, except during wars or major supply disruptions.
Promises to use more diplomatic muscle in dealing with Middle
Eastern oil producing nations and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries. Would seek more cooperation on energy with Mexico and Venezuela.
Would streamline regulatory process for building new refineries
and pipelines.
Would release more money from the Low-Income Home
Energy Assistance Program, and would earmark a portion of oil and gas royalty
payments to finance the program over the next decade.
Would
increase funding for programs that pay for energy conservation measures in
low-income housing.
Would establish a privately managed heating
oil reserve for New England.
AL GORE
Focuses on
promoting more efficient and less polluting uses of oil and other energy
sources.
Objects to exploring for oil in environmentally
sensitive areas.
To deal with short term price and supply
problems, especially in home heating oil, succeeded in convincing President
Clinton to release 30 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve.
Offers a long list of tax credits to promote
conservation and development of alternative energy sources. They include credits
for purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles and homes, use of solar energy and
generation of electricity using renewable and alternative fuels.
Sees effort to adopt cleaner-burning technologies in automobiles, homes and
businesses as an opportunity to create jobs and build new international markets
for American companies. Promises to develop market-based incentives for industry
to adopt new ways of cutting pollution.
Would substantially
increase funding for government-sponsored work on pollution-reduction and
efficiency-enhancing technology.
(pg. A13)
Map of Alaska
shows the location of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: A plan to open part
of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil. (pg. A13)
LOAD-DATE: September 30, 2000
