For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 18, 2001
Remarks by the President at Iowa Energy Center
Nevada, Iowa
Listen to the President's Remarks
4:55 P.M. CDT
THE PRESIDENT: Please be
seated. Senator, thank you very much. It's great
to see you again, and thank you so much for introducing
me. It's nice to be here in Nevada. (Laughter and
applause.) Mr. Mayor, I bet you were a little nervous about
how I was going to pronounce that, weren't you?
(Laughter.) But thank you so much, Andy, for being
here. And I thank you for being here, as well, Ms.
Murphy. It's an honor to see you.
I'm pleased to be here with the
Governor. Mr. Governor, thank you for taking
time. I am impressed that your state has got the imagination
and the foresight to be on the cutting edge of research and development
necessary to help our nation become energy-independent.
I'm so honored the two fabulous state senators
are here. How are you all doing? I hope you're
behaving -- (laughter) -- better than you were the last time I saw
you. (Laughter.) Thanks for
coming. And finally, Ganske, Congressman Ganske, thank you
for being here, friend. It's good to see you.
I'm thrilled to be traveling today with two
members of my Cabinet, who the Senator just introduced. I'm
going to ask them to say a few remarks about our vision for
America. I want to thank Floyd for his hospitality. I want
to thank the President of Iowa State for being here. I told
him I didn't appreciate how the Iowa State people treated those Texas
basketball teams this year. (Laughter.) He said
he didn't really care what I thought about how -- (laughter.)
I'm really glad to be back in
Iowa. This is not a time to talk politics, but I do want to
tell the citizens of Iowa I appreciated so very much the hospitality of
this great state. I told people that this is a unique state,
because every time I came, people treated me with respect and were very
kind. I think it may be one of the kindest states in the
United States, which is a great tribute to the people of this state.
Frankly, we need a little more kindness in
America, and we definitely need a new tone in Washington,
D.C. We need to be able to have a discussion of public
policy that's important for the country without name-calling and
finger-pointing, without the attitude of zero-sum politics -- if the
President proposed it, it's got to automatically be bad, because he
said so. And if an opponent said it, it's automatically got
to be bad because he or she said it. That's not right for
America. And it's particularly not right when it comes to
addressing huge issues and important issues, like energy security and
energy independence.
Today, I had the honor of talking -- laying
out a comprehensive energy plan for the country. I had asked
the Vice President and members of my Cabinet to take a look at the
situation, analyze the problem, and to come up with
solutions. And today, I outlined over 100 solutions,
proposals as a solution to the problems we face.
We face a shortage of energy. I was
reading in the newspaper today where there is a shortage of energy in
one of the major cities in Iowa. It is real. It
is not an imagination of anybody in my administration. It's
not out of our imagination. It's a real
problem. And we believe that this administration was elected
to address those problems.
Forget politics to put policies out for the
nation to debate, and then to act on those policies. So
today, I've laid out an initiative that said, first and foremost, we
better be better conservationists in the country. We need to
conserve. We need to be wise about how we use
energy. We need to figure out how to drive new kinds of cars
that don't over-consume hydrocarbons. We need to figure out
how to have smart technologies in our homes. Citizens need
to figure out how to be more conservation-oriented. We need to be
mindful of turning off lights. And we've got regulations
that Christie Todd may talk about that talks about more fuel-efficient
appliances. And we're making progress in
America. We're better conservationists than we've been in
the past. But there's still more work to do.
And secondly, no matter how well we conserve,
we're still going to need more energy. As I noted today, the
state of California is the second best state in the union for
conservation measures. And yet they've got a
problem. They have run out of energy at
times. That's called rolling blackouts. It just
goes to show that we can conserve, but we also need to come up with
additional supplies.
And I talked about those
supplies. And one of the keys to energy security in America,
and national security, is to have a diversified energy
base. That means oil; that means gas; that means safe
nuclear energy; that means clean coal technologies to make sure the
abundance of coal that we use is done in a friendly -- environmentally
friendly way.
But it also means interesting new
opportunities, such as biomass, and that's why we've come
here. I can't think of anything better for national security
than to replace barrels of oil that come into the country from nations
that can't stand America -- some of them don't -- with products that we
grow here in America. I can't think of -- (applause) -- I
would much rather replace oil from Iraq with corn products from
Iowa. And it's getting within our
reach. (Applause.)
I was talking to Floyd about how real are the
products that are being looked at here; how close are we to
reality. And he said, pretty darn
close. Bio-diesel is what he talked about. We're
pretty darn close, and we're more than close when it comes to
ethanol. It's real. And I said during the
campaign here that I support ethanol. You've just got to
know, I support it not only as a candidate, but I support it as the
President. It makes sense for America. (Applause.)
You know, much of the debate on energy seems
to polarize the country. It doesn't have to be that
way. You're either for exploration and, therefore, against
the environment, or for the environment and therefore, against
exploration. And that's not the way the discourse ought to
go.
The discourse ought to go: How can
we explore without hurting the environment. And I strongly
believe, and I know that technologies have developed over the last 30
years so that I can say with certainty to the American people, we can
explore for precious fuels like natural gas in a way that does not harm
our environment. It doesn't harm our -- we can go to the
Arctic, for example, and build ice roads and bring the equipment on an
ice road, and build a pad made out of ice, and then for those few
periods of time when the ice melts, withdraw the
equipment. And then when the ice comes back, come back, so
we don't damage the tundra. We can drill from one location
to a reservoir miles away. The technology has changed.
So instead of having a debate that says, well,
we can't drill because of the environment, or we can't -- and we're not
for energy dependence if you're for the environment, we need to have a
discourse that says, let's work together in America. Let's
make sure we can have both. Otherwise, our folks are going
to hurt.
We don't want the blackouts of California,
which affects a lot of hardworking people's lives in a negative way, to
extend its reach across the country. We don't want that to
happen. Nobody likes it when gas prices are
high. I know there are farmers out there working to make a
living on a thin margin, and when the price of refined product goes up,
it affects the livelihood of hardworking people in
Iowa. Nobody likes that.
So instead of polarizing, we need to come
together with solutions. We need more refining capacity in
America, folks. We need to make sure we protect the
environment, but have incentives and regulations that encourage the
development of additional supply.
And finally, in my speech today, I'm going --
I talked about conservation, and I talked about additional supplies in
a diversified supply base. I also talked about making sure
that we get the product from point A to the consumers. And
our infrastructure is aging. It's old. Our
electricity grid needs to be modernized, so we can move product from
point A to point B. There are places in Southern California where
there's ample energy, but they can't get it to Northern California,
where there's been blackouts, because the transmission system is not
modern.
Natural gas is clean. It burns
clean. It's -- a lot of plants now that are coming on line
to meet the electricity needs of America are going to be fueled by
natural gas. And that's good news. But we need
pipelines to get the gas from reservoir to user. And we need
to understand that. We need to understand we need to move
more product expeditiously around America.
So this is an energy plan that says to
America, let's work together to get after this
problem. Let's work together to bring common-sense
solutions. And let's think about how best to deploy and
employ our resources here in America, starting with what's happening
here. We're really -- I am very excited about what I
heard. It's such a vast potential, and it's a great
opportunity. And that's why we support research and
development of such activities that take place here.
You know, I've got such great faith in
America; I do. Because one thing we're not in short supply
of is an entrepreneurial spirit and brains and
problem-solvers. That's really the greatness of
America. And it's such an honor to be the President of such
a great land.
And it is also my honor -- (applause) -- and
it's my honor to welcome to the podium the Secretary of Energy, former
United States Senator Spencer Abraham. (Applause.)
* * * * *
THE
PRESIDENT: Again, Governor, thank you very much for taking
time, and, Mr. Mayor. Ganske, are you on the airplane with
me? Oh, you're not on the airplane with me. Well,
great to see you. (Laughter.)
I must say something about your -- about
Senator Grassley. First of all, I got a kick out of
campaigning with him throughout Iowa. He's got a remarkable
sense of humor and a great love for Iowa. But he is making a
good deal of progress on getting a tax relief package out of the United
States Congress. Iowans need to be proud of his
leadership. (Applause.)
I saw a lot of folks during the campaign here,
and they talked a lot about me getting rid of the death tax, and we're
making good progress. And Senator Grassley is really one of
the leaders. He has assumed an incredibly important position
in the Senate, and he is bringing a lot of honor to your state.
He's heard the call, and that is
this: We need to get tax relief done as quickly as
possible. I need to be signing a bill before Memorial Day so
we can get money -- (applause) -- we need to start getting some of that
surplus in the hands of the hardworking American people, to help
provide a second wind to our economy, and to help with some of the high
energy bills that people are now facing.
And you need to be proud of your
Senator. He's working hard, and I'm sure proud to call him
friend. And I want to thank you all for coming and giving us
a chance to talk -- to close an important day in my administration here
in a state that has got an incredible potential, and can play a major
role in value-added processing that will help this great nation of ours
realize its vast potential as we head into the 21st century.
Thanks for coming, and God
bless. (Applause.)
END
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