For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 17, 2001
Remarks by the President to Capital City Partnership
River Centre Convention Center St. Paul, Minnesota
Listen to the President's Remarks
10:30 A.M. CDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank
you. Please be seated. Thank you for that warm
welcome. First I want to thank my friend, Norm
Coleman. What a great leader he is for St.
Paul. (Applause.) He's a very good
friend. I think it's important for you all to know that when
Norm calls over there to Washington, I'll answer the
phone. (Applause.)
Traveling with me today are two of my Cabinet
officers -- first from the state of Michigan, the Energy Secretary,
Spence Abraham. (Applause.) And the EPA Administrator,
Christie Todd Whitman. (Applause.) I appreciate
John's invitation to be here, and I want to thank the Capital City
Partnership for giving me the chance to come and deliver a major policy
address to the nation. (Applause.)
I'm also pleased to be in the home of the
mighty Minnesota Twins. (Applause.) They're cost per win is
astounding. (Laughter.) It serves as a good
example of what frugality can do for the nation. (Laughter
and applause.)
But I'm not here to talk about
baseball. The Twin Cities are a great place to discuss
America's energy challenge. Minneapolis-St. Paul grew up as
a mighty milling and transportation center because of the power of the
Mississippi River. Your history was built on energy that was
abundant and affordable and reliable. So, too, will be this
nation's energy future.
I invite you to think with me about that
future, and an early look at the future this morning, right here in St.
Paul. I toured a plant that harnesses the best of new
technology to produce energy that is cleaner and more efficient and
more affordable. The plant boils enough water to heat 146
major office buildings in downtown St. Paul. Not a bit of
energy is wasted -- not even the waste. The excess heat
generated as the water boils is captured and used to create steam,
which generates still more electricity to power pumps and to deliver
heat.
The plant is a model of energy
efficiency. It is also a model of energy
diversity. It uses conventional fuels like oil and natural
gas and coal, and renewable fuels like wood chips. And the
plant is a model of affordability. While other energy prices
rise, District Energy has not raised its heating and cooling rates in
four years. (Applause.)
We're beginning to see the power of the
future, not only in office buildings, but also in our homes and our
cars. This spring, the Sustainable Buildings Industry
Council showcased a solar-powered home so advanced that it actually
produces more energy than it uses. And some Americans are
already driving hybrid cars that can convert to battery power, to
reduce emissions and get up to 70 miles a gallon of
gas. These are our early glimpses of a future in which
Americans will meet our energy needs in ways that are efficient, clean,
convenient and affordable.
The future is achievable, if we make the right
choices now. But if we fail to act, this great country could
face a darker future, a future that is, unfortunately, being previewed
in rising prices at the gas pump and rolling blackouts in the great
state of California.
These events are challenging what had become a
fact of life in America, the routine, everyday expectation that when
you flick on a light switch, the light will come
on. Californians are learning, regrettably, that sometimes
when you flick on the light switch, the light does not come on, at any
price.
I'm deeply concerned about the impact of
blackouts on the daily lives of the good people of the state of
California. And my administration is committed to helping
California. We're helping right now by expediting permits
for new power production and by working as good partners to reduce our
electricity at federal facilities, especially during the peak periods
this summer.
My administration has developed a sane
national plan to help meet our energy needs this year and every
year. If we fail to act on this plan, energy prices will
continue to rise. For two decades, the share of the average
family budget spent on energy steadily declined. But since
1998, it has skyrocketed by 25 percent. And that's a
hardship for every American family.
If we fail to act, Americans will face more
and more widespread blackouts. If we fail to act, our
country will become more reliant on foreign crude oil, putting our
national energy security into the hands of foreign nations, some of
whom do not share our interests. And if we fail to act, our
environment will suffer, as government officials struggle to prevent
blackouts in the only way possible -- by calling on more polluting
emergency backup generators, and by running less efficient, old power
plants too long and too hard.
America cannot allow that to be our future,
and we will not. (Applause.) 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
one hundred 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 30 years ago. Overall, we
use 40 percent less energy to produce new goods and services than we
did in 1973. But this steady improvement slowed in the
1990s.
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 manufactures to
build more energy-efficient appliances. We will review and
remove the obstacles that prevent business from investing in
energy-efficient technologies, like the combined heat and power system
I toured this morning.
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. (Applause.) 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 learn 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. (Applause.)
New technology makes drilling for oil far more
productive, as well as environmentally friendly, than it was 30 or 40
years ago. Here is the result of one study -- and I
quote: "Improvements over the past 40 years have
dramatically reduced 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 study conducted during my
predecessor's administration. Advanced new technologies
allows 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 ANWR, we can
build roads of ice that literally melt away when summer comes, and the
drilling then stops to protect wildlife. ANWR 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're not blessed -- 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 multi-pollutant 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. (Applause.) 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 hydro-electricity. 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.
In 1919, a young U.S. Army officer was ordered
to lead a truck convoy westward across our country. He was
astonished to discover that the journey took 62 days. His
name was Dwight David Eisenhower. And the memory of this
bumpy transcontinental ride led to the creation of a modern
transportation system.
Today, our electrical system is almost as
bumpy as our highways were 80 years ago. We have chopped our
country into dozens of local electricity markets, which are haphazardly
connected to one another. For example, a weak link in
California's electrical grid makes it difficult to transfer power from
the southern part of the state to the north, where the blackouts have
been worse. Highways connect Miami with Seattle; phone lines
link Los Angeles and New York. It is time to match your
interstate highway and phone systems with an interstate electrical
grid. (Applause.)
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.
We'll also need to recognize the energy
potential of our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and make it easier for
buyers and sellers of energy to do business across our national
borders.
And finally, we must work to build a new
harmony between our energy needs and our environmental
concerns. (Applause.) Too often, Americans are
asked to take sides between energy production and environmental
protection, as if people who revere the Alaska wilderness do not also
care about America's energy future; as if the people who produce
America's energy do not care about the planet their children will
inherit. The truth is energy production and environmental
protection are not competing
priorities. (Applause.) They are dual aspects of
a single purpose, to live well and wisely upon the Earth.
Just as we need a new tone in Washington, we
also need a new tone in discussing energy and the environment, one that
is less suspicious, less punitive, less rancorous. We've
yelled at each other enough. Now it's time to listen to each
other, and act. (Applause.)
And it's time to act. The energy
plan I lay out for the nation harnesses the power of modern markets,
and the potential of new technology. It looks at today's energy
problem and sees tomorrow's energy opportunity. It addresses today's
energy shortages and shows the way to tomorrow's energy abundance.
I have great faith in our country's ability to
solve the energy problem, and our energy plan shows the
way. But most of all, I have great faith in the American
people. Our land's ingenuity, our innovation, our
entrepreneurial spirits, is this country's greatest of all
resources. And thank God they are never in short
supply. God bless. (Applause.)
END
10:54 A.M. CDT
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