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Bush critical of foreign oil dependence { April 28 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/politics/28bush.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/politics/28bush.html
April 28, 2005
Bush Offers Plan to Bolster Refineries and Nuclear Plants
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON, April 27 -President Bush presented a plan on Wednesday to offer federal risk insurance to companies that build nuclear power plants and to encourage the construction of oil refineries on closed military bases in the United States.
Mr. Bush also proposed giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority to choose sites for new terminals to receive liquid natural gas from overseas.
Mr. Bush's proposals, which he laid out to a friendly lunchtime audience of small-business owners at the Washington Hilton, would not lower domestic gasoline prices this summer. But they appeared to be a response to continuing criticism from Saudi Arabia that one reason for the high cost of gasoline is a lack of refining capacity in the United States.
"Because of our foreign energy independence, our ability to take actions at home that will lower prices for American families is diminishing," Mr. Bush told the business owners, who were attending a conference organized by the Small Business Administration. "Our dependence on foreign energy is like a foreign tax on the American people."
Recent polls suggest that high gasoline prices have cut into Mr. Bush's popularity, and the president has made two speeches in the last week on efforts to bring down the cost of oil. At the same time, he has used the speeches to keep up pressure on Congress to pass his long-stalled energy bill, which has languished on Capitol Hill for nearly four years.
The president has acknowledged that his proposals would not lower gasoline prices "today," but has said that they would help in the long run.
"This problem did not develop overnight, and it's not going to be fixed overnight," Mr. Bush said in his speech at the Hilton. "But it's now time to fix it. See, we got a fundamental question we got to face here in America: Do we want to continue to grow more dependent on other nations to meet our energy needs, or do we want what is necessary to achieve greater control of our economic destiny?" Most of Mr. Bush's speech was a restatement of White House energy policy, but the plan to build refineries on closed military bases startled energy experts outside the administration. Administration officials said that bases could either be leased or sold to private companies in open bidding. At present, there are about 100 closed bases in the United States, but some have already been redeveloped as commercial airports or economic free zones for businesses.
Building more nuclear power plants has long been a part of Mr. Bush's energy policy, but offering federal risk insurance to companies or investors willing to try to get approval for them is new. In his speech, Mr. Bush said that his goal was to reduce uncertainty in the building and regulatory process, and to protect companies from construction delays beyond their control.
Mr. Bush noted that the United States had not ordered a new nuclear power plant since the 1970's, and that since then 35 plants were stopped at various stages of construction because of bureaucratic delays.
"No wonder the industry is hesitant to start building again," he said.
There has been a shift in opinion in the industry and among some environmentalists toward more nuclear power, because it is clean and far safer than at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979.
White House officials said that they wanted Mr. Bush's proposals to be part of the energy bill now working its way through Congress. Senator Pete V. Domenici, the New Mexico Republican who is chairman of a Senate subcommittee on energy and water and a major proponent of nuclear power, said in a statement on Tuesday night that he would incorporate some of Mr. Bush's proposals into the bill.
Democrats criticized Mr. Bush's proposals as ineffective for average consumers.
"The Republican plan won't help the families, truckers, farmers and small businesses suffering from skyrocketing gas prices today," Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who ran for president against Mr. Bush in 2004, said in a statement.
A consumer group also criticized the president's proposals.
"The president is proposing to increase refining capacity in this country ostensibly to reduce our dependence on foreign countries, yet in the same breath he is pushing for increased imports of liquefied natural gas, which will leave us more dependent on other countries," the National Association of State Public Interest Groups, a consumer advocacy organization, said in a statement.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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