Bush Adviser: Energy Security To Be Top Goal
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WASHINGTON — President Bush wants to make energy independence a domestic priority next year with an eye to gathering bipartisan support in the Democratic-controlled Congress, his chief economic adviser said.
“The American people are very interested in the leadership of our country figuring out a way for us to be less dependent on foreign sources of oil,” the director of Bush’s National Economic Council, Allan Hubbard, said in a December 8 interview. “I’m sure he will address energy security in his State of the Union and his other major speeches.”
Mr. Bush, in his State of the Union address last January, declared America “addicted” to oil and set a goal of cutting Middle Eastern imports by 75% by 2025. The House speaker-elect, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat of California, has pledged to make rolling back subsidies for oil companies one of her top priorities when Democrats take over Congress in January.
The president also will make immigration reform a top priority, Mr. Hubbard said. Mr. Bush wants legislation that allows for a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship, and Democrats mostly agree. Mr. Bush’s proposal died this year after Republicans who controlled the House stressed border security measures instead.
Mr. Bush may bring energy security back to the fore because the concerns about high prices and foreign supplies haven’t dissipated among Americans, Mr. Hubbard said. “There’s not a lot of excess capacity,” he said.
America is vulnerable to interruptions in supplies because so much of the world’s oil comes from “people who currently are not our friends,” Mr. Hubbard said, citing Iran.
“You’ve two choices: supply and demand, or a combination of the two,” Mr. Hubbard said. “You can do it through either increasing supply or encouraging people to be more efficient in their consumption.”
Mr. Hubbard wouldn’t provide details of future White House proposals, saying specifics will come when Mr. Bush makes his State of the Union speech to Congress and the nation on January 23. While acknowledging that raising taxes on gasoline would cut demand, he dismissed suggestions that Mr. Bush would propose any increases.
“It would be nice to figure out how to do it without any pain or sacrifice, but if there is pain or sacrifice, I’d minimize the pain or sacrifice,” Mr. Hubbard said.
