| lkgeo1 2006-12-20, 1:25 pm |
| Bush to make USA oil independent country by 2030
Front page / World / Americas
15.12.2006 Source:
Pages: 12
The Bush administration should act decisively to break America's
dependence on oil, said a group of leading US business executives and
senior military officers in a report presented on Wednesday to the
White House and Congress.
The bipartisan group, which includes the chief executives of Fedex,
UPS, Dow Chemicals and some of America's best known retired generals,
urged Washington to recognise that "pure market economics will never
solve the problem" of US oil dependency.
The report poured cold water on the Bush administration's goal of
reducing America's dependence on foreign oil, rather than on oil in
general. It urged Mr Bush and the new Democrat-controlled Congress to
set up a plan to halve the American economy's oil-intensity by 2030.
George W. Bush has repeatedly identified "energy independence" and
immigration reform as two of the issues most likely to attract
bipartisan support following the Republican loss of control of Capitol
Hill in mid-term elections last month.
"Events affecting supply or demand anywhere will affect consumers
everywhere," said the report, brought out by the Energy Security
Leadership Council, a think tank. "Exposure to price shocks is a
function of how much oil a nation consumes and is not significantly
affected by the ratio of "domestic oil" to so-called "foreign
oil".
The report also warned Mr Bush, who is expected to announce new energy
independence measures in his annual State of the Union address to
Congress next month, that America's oil dependence makes it acutely
vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
America's transport system is 97 per cent dependent on oil. More than
90 per cent of world oil supply is controlled by foreign governments.
"America must address this critical weakness." Said P.X. Kelley, a
retired Marine Corps general. "An oil supply interruption cannot be
reasonably dismissed as improbable."
However, there is deep-seated scepticism about the willingness of the
Bush administration, which has yet to endorse the theory of global
warming, to take the tough steps most energy experts say are necessary
to reduce America's dependence on oil.
Pages: 12
http://english.pravda.ru/world/amer...006/85938-oil-0
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