2001 US press briefings
The James S. Brady Briefing Room
1:56 P.M. EDT
MR. FLEISCHER: Good afternoon. A few announcements. The President intends to nominate Marie T. Huhtala to be Ambassador of the United States to Malaysia. The President intends to nominate Mary Anne Solberg to be Deputy Director of the National Drug Control Policy. The President intends to nominate Scott Burns to be Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs in the Office of National Drug Control Policy. And the President has designated David Curtis Williams to be Acting Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
One final note, and I'll be pleased to take questions. Today, Governor Davis will open the Larkspur Peaker Power Plant in San Diego, California. The President is very pleased to note the addition of a new power plant coming on to the grid in California. This plant was helped to come on line as a result of work that was done by the Bush administration and Environmental Protection Agency, where they issued administrative orders, a consent that allowed the immediate and expedited construction of peak new power plants. It's another example how the federal government can and will work with California to help get through the energy crisis that they are in the middle of.
And with that, I'm more than happy to take questions.
Q Ari, the President said earlier today that when there is not necessarily a crisis, or people aren't feeling the crunch, that it's harder to get people to think about long-term solutions, when you're talking about energy. Do you -- are you taking the view with this sort of new push to sell the plan that there is, in fact, a crisis? Or is this really a long-term strategy?
MR. FLEISCHER: After a period of substantial stability and, in fact, low prices in the energy industry throughout much of the mid-1990s, beginning in approximately 1998, the energy industry has been met with a series of spike-ups and spike-downs, in terms of energy prices. And while many politicians have alternated between denial and blame, President Bush thinks the best course of the nation is to stay steady and true, to have a stable, comprehensive policy that allows America to develop its energy resources, so we can have more energy independence.
So clearly more people focus on problems in energy when they're in the middle of something extraordinary. But as I've indicated, there have been a series of spike-ups, spike-downs, which leave politicians to alternatively blame and then deny. They blame somebody else for a problem, and then they deny there's a problem.
The President thinks the best course is to continue to focus on a comprehensive solution, so that we don't need to have any more blame or any more denials. Instead, we have solutions.
Q Is that where we are right now, in a spike-down period? Are you waiting for gas prices to go back up, the brownouts to start up again?
MR. FLEISCHER: Prices have been coming down recently. The President is very pleased about that; that's good for the consumer, that's good for the country. But as the history of energy in the United States has shown, these trends don't stay in one direction very long. And America still has an aging infrastructure in terms of the electric grid. It still has an aging infrastructure in terms of the ability to get natural gas from one part of the country to the next. There are regions of the country that remain vulnerable to blackouts and to brownouts. And America still is a nation that is overly reliant on foreign supplies of oil.
So despite the fact that prices have, indeed, come down recently, which is a good thing, the President still wants to focus the nation's attention on the need to get the job done, so we are less dependent on foreign oil.
Q Ari, not two months ago the President said, in St. Paul, Minnesota, we are facing the biggest energy crisis since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s. What happened to the crisis?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the nation still is operating on the margins of error. Any little problem can create a major problem for the country. We still are not out of the woods. California has brought on a couple plants, which is helpful. Conservation has been very helpful. The federal initiative in California to have the federal government, which is the largest consumer of electricity in California, cut back its usage by 10 percent has been helpful. And certainly the role that individual Californians have plaid in conservation has been helpful. The FERC action has been helpful.
So it's taken a combination of actions, all of which has added up to a little bit of breathing room so far.