MPR: Bush Outlines Energy Policy in St. Paul Visit

Bush Outlines Energy Policy in St. Paul Visit

Prior to giving his speech on energy, President Bush toured St. Paul's District Energy Plant. With him is Chad Bednar of District Energy. Pool Photo: Minneapolis Star Tribune

Listen to President Bush's speech on energy policy, delivered in St. Paul on May 17, 2001.

Listen to MPR's Midday coverage, including analysis of President Bush's plan (5/17/2001).

President Bush said in St. Paul that if the country fails to act on his energy policy, it will face more blackouts and more dependence on foreign oil. Bush's plan for increasing the nation's supply of energy includes expanded oil and gas drilling on public land and rejuvenating nuclear power. The president says he also wants to rebuild the nation's electrical grid and encourage energy efficiency. Bush says part of his plan will be to streamline regulations that make it hard for businesses to use energy more efficiently.

BUSH'S ENERGY BLUEPRINT, developed by a Cabinet-level task force, cites a "fundamental imbalance between supply and demand" that will take time to correct.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed the task force, said he was optimistic that many of the some 100 recommendations will lead to a sound energy future. "The tasks ahead are great but achievable," Cheney said in a letter accompanying the 163-page report.

The report proposes little to address this summer's soaring gasoline prices or Western electricity shortages. But it depicts a gloomy energy picture, including high gasoline and electricity prices across much of the country, soaring natural gas prices causing havoc with farmers and the possibility of power blackouts in the West and Northeast.

Still, the recommendations contain little that addresses immediate short-term problems American could face this summer.

It calls the country's energy shortages the worse since the 1970s oil embargoes that featured long gas lines and energy rationing. Still, today's supplies of oil and gas - as well as electricity across most of the country - are adequate, industry experts say.

PROTESTORS GIVE BUSH IMMEDIATE RESPONSE

As many as 500 protestors and a handful of supporters waved signs and chanted outside the Excel Energy Center in St. Paul where President Bush spoke. They occupied the street corners at the intersection of West 7th Street and Kellogg Blvd. and inflated a giant balloon in the shape of an SUV.

"He's going to talk a lot about it because I think he understands the people of America aren't looking to the old style of energy of coal and fossil fuels," said Scott Elkin, Minnesota director of the Sierra Club. "(However), it's not the direction President Bush's plan is going."

About a dozen supporters of the president staked out a position in a sea of anti-Bush placards. Kara Bates, originally from Texas and now St. Paul said "the Earth is a natural resource and a finite resource. We have to continue to research and use technology and use the tools of energy companies who are funding the research to find alternatives and find solutions to the energy crisis."

A line of St. Paul police and state patrol officers held the crowd of protestors back from the main entrace to the Excel Center. The protestors chanted anti-Bush slogans, but were otherwise peaceful.

REACTION FALLS ALONG PARTY LINES

Robynne Curlee of Washington, D.C. was among dozens of protesters who greeted President Bush outside the RiverCentre in St. Paul. See a Faces in the Crowd slideshow.

The 163-page "action plan" - as White House officials have called it - will become pivotal in the writing of energy legislation in Congress later this year.

Initial Republican reaction was positive. Democrats said while there are "common grounds," the president's emphasis on production as opposed to conservation and lack of short-term measures are of serious concern.

"It is a work in progress," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. He said "the case has to be made" for some provisions such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said he hoped to have energy legislation up for a Senate vote this summer, but also acknowledged some of it "will be hotly debated."

Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe called the Bush plan a product of an administration "filled top to bottom with people from the oil industry."

"George Bush's message to California from day one has been, "Drop dead'," McAuliffe said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

A COMEBACK FOR NUCLEAR POWER?

It provides 105 recommendations, from reviewing all public lands to determine if they should be open to energy development to streamlining nuclear power plant and re-examining whether vehicle fuel economy requirements should be strengthened.

Twenty of the recommendations would require congressional action and 42 would "help increase conservation, environmental protection and use of alternative fuels," the White House said. Another 35 recommendations are directed at increasing supplies and improving energy infrastructure.

The report includes more than $10 billion worth of tax credits over 10 years for conservation and energy development, but about half those credits either already exist or had previously been proposed in the president's budget in February. The largest credit, $4 billion, would be aimed at spurring sales of hybrid gas-electric cars, which are not expected to be widely available for several years, although a few are in showrooms.

The president's plan calls for easing regulatory barriers to building nuclear power plants, expanding oil and gas development, refinery construction and improving the nation's inadequate and sometimes precarious electricity grid.

Among the report's most controversial recommendations is to lift the ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Democrats have vowed to block any legislation freeing the refuge to development.

Among other key recommendations in the report:

An executive order to require federal agencies to consider the impact on energy supplies whenever issuing a regulation.
Streamline regulatory approval for energy facilities, including power plants, hydroelectric dams, refineries and transmission lines and natural gas pipelines.
Provide or extend tax credits for renewable energy sources such as wind turbines, organic waste energy plants, or methane landfills that produce energy as well as for purchase of solar panels.
Expedite government approval of a pipeline to carry natural gas from Alaska's North Slope, if such a permit is requested.
Provide $2 billion over 10 years for research into clean coal technology, to assure the future of coal as a major energy source.

A BOOST FOR COLEMAN

Bush's visit to Minnesota appeared to underscore the intensity with which the White House will campaign to unseat Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone. St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, who chaired Bush's presidential campaign in Minnesota in 2000, has Bush's backing in his bid for the U.S. Senate in 2002.

Sen. Mark Dayton criticized Bush for trying to build support for Norm Coleman. "They have basically designated the mayor of St. Paul, Norm Coleman, as the presumptive next senator from Minnesota, so there's no coincidence in my view that they're in my home state," he said. Wellstone says Bush's policy is almost based on burning more fossil fuels. "Our future, a big part of our future, renewable, biomass to electricity, wind, clean fuels, ethanol, bidiesel, safe energy clean technology, small business, but that's not the path they're going down because big oil companies are absolutely opposed to it," he said.

Wellstone also says Bush has proposed to cut a low-income energy assistance program by $800 million next year, which he says would affect 80,000 Minnesotans. Wellstone says it's a bad idea to cut that program while people are facing continually rising energy prices.

MPR Reporters Art Hughes and William Wilcoxen and editor Mike Mulcahy assisted in this report.

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