Washington (Platts)--15Jul2005

Six Democratic state governors Friday called on President Bush to launch "a
bold national project" to achieve US energy independence within a decade. In a
letter, the governors endorsed a campaign by a group called the Apollo
Alliance that calls for increased reliance on alternative fuels, energy
efficiency and renewable energy to curb the nation's energy demand, including
the reliance on imported oil. 

The alliance includes leaders from business, labor, environmental and civil
rights groups, among others. While it does not say so explicitly, the letter
suggests pending energy legislation in Congress is insufficient to address the
nation's energy needs. "These governors want the president to think bigger,"
Toby Chaudhuri, communications director for Campaign for America's Future, a
liberal policy group, said in an e-mail distributing the letter. "It'll take a
lot more than hot air from Washington to make America independent of
dangerous, foreign sources of energy."

The governors said Bush should follow the lead of a number of states that have
launched initiatives to promote alternative energy. Among the specific actions
they recommend are a 10-year extension of federal tax credits for renewable
energy production, now scheduled to expire Dec 31 (the Senate energy bill
would extend them by three years); federal loan guarantees for state and
municipal bonds supporting alternative energy projects; tax credits and other
incentives for building "clean fuel" infrastructure; and incentives for
distributed energy technologies. 

Signing the letter were Rod Blagojevich of Illinois; Jim Doyle of Wisconsin;
Christine Gregoire of Washington; Ted Kulongoski of Oregon; Janet Napolitano
of Arizona; Bill Richardson of New Mexico; and Brian Schweitzer of Montana.

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