For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 28, 2001
Remarks by the President to Department of Energy Employees
Department of Energy
Washington, D.C.
Listen to the
President's Remarks
10:15 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very
much. (Applause.) Okay. (Applause.)
Conserve your energy. (Laughter.) That's the
message I'm sending to Congress today, in a comprehensive energy
strategy. On the one hand, it says we must be wiser about
how we develop and increase supply. And on the other hand,
it says we must be wiser about how we conserve energy.
Our nation must have a strategy, a broad,
comprehensive energy strategy, that calls upon the best of the nation's
entrepreneurs to help us develop the technologies necessary to make
wise choices in the marketplace, as well as calls upon our nation's
innovative technologies to help us find new sources of
energy. And the plan I submitted to Congress today does just
that. (Applause.) Mr. Secretary, I
appreciate your leadership. He's a man of high energy and
good wisdom. And I picked the right man to lead the Energy
Department for the country. (Applause.) I want to
thank all the hardworking folks here at the Department of Energy, and
those around the country who are dedicating your lives to making
America a better place. I want to thank the
United States Congressmen who came. George, thank you very
much for being here. He's from the great state of
California. As you know, California has an energy issue, and
the people of our country and the people of California must understand
that the federal government has stood side by side with the people of
California, working to alleviate the situation there.
We've expedited the ability for California to
build new power plants. We've reduced the regulatory burdens and
hurdles to encourage the increase of supply into a state in which no
power plant had been built for over a decade. And yesterday
I was pleased to see, and the Governor inaugurated a new power plant in
Chino, California, the beginnings of what is a rational energy policy
that will help the good people of California get out from underneath 10
years of neglect. Secondly, the federal
government made a strong commitment, led by Spence Abraham, and led by
Don Rumsfeld, to reduce the amount of usage of energy in the state of
California. And I'm pleased to report the U.S. Navy, for
example, has reported it has reduced power during peak hours by 11
percent over last year. And I want to thank you all for
being good stewards of the nation's scarce resources.
I'm also pleased to recognize the members of
the Canadian-Mexican-U.S. task force to develop energy supply in our
own hemisphere. Natural gas needs to move in our
hemisphere. It needs to move easily across our borders to
find markets, to be able to ease the pressures of reduced supply all
around the country. One of the interesting
things about California is the new power plants that are now being
constructed will be powered by natural gas. Therefore, we
need more natural gas supply to power the power plants. And
I want to thank our Mexican and Canadian friends for working with us to
jointly develop -- (applause). And, finally,
I want to thank the entrepreneurs who have come to brief Spence and
myself on the latest technologies that are developing. You
know, one of the greatest things about our country is that if we
provide the right incentive and the right partnerships, there are no
limits to what our entrepreneurs can develop. There's no
limits to the technology that we can bring to marketplace.
And we saw a lot of that today. We
saw new automobiles that will be more fuel-efficient, while making sure
that consumer demand for comfort is met. We saw new
technologies being developed out of Silicon Valley and Massachusetts
and other states, that will make consumer products more
energy-efficient. And I want to thank the entrepreneurs who
are here, and remind you that my government is committed to this
proposition. Our job is to create an environment in which
the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes all across
America. That not only means reasonable, sound tax policy,
that means putting the federal government squarely on the side of
innovation. And so, today, I'm pleased to
announce $85.7 million in federal grants to encourage academia and the
private sector to join with contributions from the private sector to
accelerate the development of fuel cells, advanced engines,
hydro-technology and efficient appliances for American
consumers. (Applause.) And today,
as well, I want to talk about what's called vampires, and announce to
the nation the new vampire slayer, and that's the Secretary of Energy,
Spence Abraham. (Laughter and applause.) Because
of our desire for instant convenience, many of the appliances in our
homes carry unnecessarily high energy costs. Because we're
used to a computer coming on instantly or a TV snapping on as a result
of a remote switch, common day appliances eat enormous amounts of
energy. And yet we're developing the technologies necessary
to have both convenience and energy savings.
Today, we witnessed the technology necessary, for example, to take a
device that powers cell phones, and reduce the amount of electricity by
a significant amount of money. You see, when the battery is
plugged into the wall, even though the phone is not charging, it still
eats energy. And while that may not be much of a savings on
an individual unit basis, when you multiply the amount of chargers
plugged into people's walls all across America, one can begin to
realize significant energy savings all across the country.
As a matter of fact, it said that these
vampires, the vampire devices use about 4 percent of the electricity in
the average home. And to put this on a national scale, if we
multiplied the vampire devices' energy consumption across the country,
we're talking about 52 billion kilowatt hours of power a year, or the
equivalent of 26 average-size power plants.
And so the fundamental question is, are we able to make the
technologies with the consumer devices? And the answer is,
we must. We must, if we are to have an energy strategy of
which one of the key components is conservation. And so
today, not only am I announcing that Spence is the vampire slayer --
and by that, I mean that the federal government will work hard to
purchase and promote those energy savers that only use one watt of
energy as opposed to the average four or seven watts of energy.
And so, what can we do? What can we
do to set the clear example? Well, first, I'm going to sign an
executive order directing all federal agencies to purchase appliances
that meet the one-watt standard, wherever cost-effective. I
say wherever cost effective, because I don't want the manufacturers of
the new products to feel that they've got an easy market when it comes
to the federal government. We will purchase the new
technologies, but we will make sure we do so without getting
gouged. We'll be reasonable purchasers. But the
federal government must set the example. We
must have -- my dream is to have desktop computers all across our
government with the latest savings devices that we saw today on
display. Saving devices that say, when the computer is off or on
standby, the energy supply being used is reduced by
sevenfold. That's necessary. It is the right step
for our federal government to set the example. It is the
right step for our federal government -- on the one hand, if we lay out
an energy strategy, we must act upon the strategy.
And so, Mr. Secretary, when I sign that
executive order, I know the kind of person you are. You will
join with me in judging how effective our purchasers have become, to
whether or not this is simply a piece of paper, or whether or not it
becomes an action plan for smart government policy. And both of us are
joined together to make sure it's an action plan. (Applause.)
Secondly, we hope industry joins with
government in making these wise decisions. That's
happening. The bottom line is essential for many
corporations. The bottom line can be drastically affected in
a positive way by smart energy practices. And it's
happening. Imagine the economies of purchase that will take
place when the federal government and industry starts making wise
decisions about the technologies to save energy, so that it becomes
much more feasible for the American consumer in short order.
And finally, we must incorporate the new
one-watt standard in the qualifications to earn the energy star as
awarded by the Department of Energy and the EPA. The energy
star is an important marketing tool, because it says to
energy-conscious consumers, this product makes sense; this product
incorporates the latest technology to conserve energy; this product is
the most efficient use of technology that we can promote.
And we're very aggressive about promoting
energy star. I'm a strong supporter of the program, because
there are millions of Americans who want to make the right choices, who
want to help this nation become less dependent on foreign sources of
crude oil, who want this nation to be a nation that has a reliable
energy source, and who want to do their part when it comes to
purchasing in the marketplace. And energy star is a great
way for the federal government to enter into a partnership with
consumer product producers, that says, this is the latest, this is the
best. And so the Secretary of Energy and the Director of --
Administration of the EPA and my office will work to promote Energy
Star all across the country. (Applause.) Ours
is the first administration that has laid out a broad strategy, a
comprehensive strategy, a strategy that goes beyond the stale debates
of whether or not we ought to drill for natural gas in Alaska, or
not. This strategy is much broader than that. And
while I strongly believe we ought to explore for natural gas and
hydrocarbons without destroying our environment, and I believe we can
do so in Alaska, it's important for the American people to understand
that we're talking way beyond just one single issue that seems to
dominate the landscape here in Washington, D.C.
Ours is a program that says, we must
conserve. We must advance technologies that are smart and
reasonable and make eminent sense for the future of our country; and
that while we're promoting additional supply, we must be wise about how
we get supplies to the consumers. We must modernize an
aging, decrepit, old, energy-inefficient
infrastructure. It's about time an administration came up
and told the truth to the American people and laid out a common-sense
agenda to make sure the great future of this country is as bright as it
possibly can be. (Applause.) Mr.
Secretary, I'm honored to be here. Thank you for the
invitation. Again, I want to repeat to all the good, hardworking folks
here in this department, thanks for your service to the greatest
country on the face of the Earth. God bless
you all, and God bless America. (Applause.)
END 10:32
A.M. EDT
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