Bush: Build Oil Refineries at Ex-Military Bases
Date: 28-Apr-05
Country: USA
"The problem is clear. This problem did not develop overnight, and it's not going to be fixed overnight," Bush said in lowering expectations for immediate relief.
Bush, in his second energy speech in a week, warned that the United States must wean itself from foreign oil and described it as a national security problem, two days after he met Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and reached no agreement that would lower gasoline prices in the near term.
Bush was trying to get the upper hand on an issue suddenly bedeviling the early months of his second term. A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed on Tuesday that less than half of Americans support the way he is handling energy policy.
Bush proposed pursuing technological advances to make hydrogen-powered fuel cells a source of energy for everything from cell phones to cars.
"Our dependence on foreign energy is like a foreign tax on the American people. It's a tax our citizens pay every day in higher gasoline prices and higher costs to heat and cool their homes. It's a tax on jobs, and it's a tax that's increasing every year," he said.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Bush's announcement "amounts to little more than half-measures and wrongheaded policies that will do nothing to address the current energy crisis or break the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our nation."
Bush, speaking to a friendly crowd of small business leaders, urged Congress to include in energy legislation now moving on Capitol Hill a plan to let oil companies use former military bases to build new refineries.
No new US oil refineries have been built since the 1970s, mostly because of the lengthy process to obtain environmental permits from state regulators and opposition from local communities.
A top independent oil refiner, Valero Energy Corp. said expanding its current fleet of refineries makes better economic sense than building new refineries at closed military bases. Lack of refining capacity is frequently cited by experts as a reason why gasoline prices have surged.
"The issue isn't necessarily new refineries, the issue is more refining capacity," said Valero's chief operating officer, Bill Klesse. "Clearly you could do expansion work within the refineries probably quicker and more economically than you could on (building a plant up from) grass roots."
Bush also proposed offering federally backed risk insurance for companies wanting to build new nuclear plants, to mitigate the cost of delays due to any potential failures in the licensing process. The last generation of nuclear power plants was built in the 1970s and 1980s.
In addition, Bush proposed allowing the Federal Regulatory Commission become the lead authority over states in granting licenses for the construction of liquefied natural gas terminals.
At the four operating terminals in the United States, imported supercold, liquefied natural gas is processed for use in the United States.
Bush's support for federal regulators to override local opposition to new terminals came on the same day that some of the world's biggest producers of liquefied natural gas, meeting in Trinidad, agreed to work together to seek what they called a "fair price" for their shipments, a move similar to the early days of the OPEC oil cartel.