12:00 pm
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA – United States President George W. Bush unveiled a plan to increase coal, oil and nuclear power production and incentives for conservation today, saying higher gas prices and California's blackouts meant that America must act to avert a "darker future".
"If we fail to act, we could face a darker future, a future that is unfortunately being previewed in rising prices at the gas pump and rolling blackouts in California," Bush said in unveiling the plan that said America faced "the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargoes of the 1970s."
Bush called for a "new tone" in the environmental debate, saying "we've yelled at each other enough."
Democrats, however, quickly lined up to oppose the report and environmentalists outside the speech site in the Minnesota capital protested the proposals as a threat to the environment and a boon to Bush allies in the oil industry.
The head of the UN forum on climate change, Jan Pronk, dubbed the plan a "disastrous development" for international efforts to slow output of global warming gases.
The President said his plan would "expand and diversify" US energy supplies. "Conservation doesn't have to mean doing without. Thanks to new technology, it can mean doing better and smarter and cheaper," he said.
The 163-page plan, with 105 recommendations, was developed by a panel headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. It aims to:
* Increase energy production by spurring the building of new nuclear power plants, opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, and streamlining rules governing power plant and refinery expansions.
* End bottlenecks in electricity transmission between regions of the country and build more pipelines to carry oil and natural gas.
* Encourage conservation by providing $US10 billion ($NZ23.5 billion) in tax breaks, including $US4 billion ($NZ9.4 billion) in tax credits for the purchase of fuel-efficient "hybrid" vehicles and a 15 per cent tax credit for installing solar panels on houses. Tax credits or financial aid would also encourage alternative fuels and weatherisation.
The plan includes no measures to specifically avert summer blackouts in California or combat high gasoline prices.
Bush's plan came in for stern criticism, at home in the US and in Europe.
The UN's Jan Pronk, who is also the Dutch environment minister, told a Dutch television news program the Bush plan would "undoubtedly" lead to increased output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, although he still awaited proposals from the world's biggest polluter on how to cut emissions.
"In terms of the possibility of forming an integrated policy (to cut emissions), this is a disastrous development," Pronk said.
President of the US National Environmental Trust, Philip Clapp, said the plan would not "produce affordable energy for Americans now, or ten years from now".
"What the president's plan will do is drive up air pollution in our cities and turn the last 5 per cent of our public lands that we've protected for future generations over to the oil and coal companies."
House of Representatives Democratic leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri, said Bush's plan "makes the wrong choices for America and for the American people" by focusing on drilling and production rather than conservation.
Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid said the Republican "GOP" nickname now stands for "gas, oil and plutonium."
But Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota, while saying Bush's proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge had no chance of winning Senate approval, said Democrats were willing to take a look at many of the other proposals to address the nation's energy problems.
Amid concerns that Americans use too much gasoline, the report called for a new efficiency standards for vehicles.
It urged Bush to ask Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to review fuel formula regulations to assess their environmental benefit and to determine whether the rules limit distribution of gasoline supplies.
The report also urged Bush to ask the EPA to consider rolling back a regulation requiring state-of-the-art pollution controls on upgraded power plants and refineries.
It called for a review of impediments to using federal lands for oil and gas drilling and to consider new drilling in portions of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, land set aside in 1923 to provide emergency supplies for the US Navy.
The plan seeks $US2 billion ($NZ4.7 billion) over 10 years to develop technology to burn coal, which provides 52 per cent of US electricity, with less pollution.
On nuclear energy, in addition to streamlining the licensing of new nuclear plants, the plan would provide $US1.5 billion ($NZ3.5 billion) in tax incentives to facilitate the sale of nuclear plants.
The plan recommends continued study of a deep underground repository for storing nuclear waste and a study of whether to revive the idea of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.
On the international side, the plan says energy security should be a priority of US foreign policy and recommended a review of sanctions affecting oil producers like Iran, Iraq and Libya.
- REUTERS
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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United Nations Environment Program