Bush wishes for different start on climate change, energy policy

Washington (Platts)--30Mar2006

In a stunning admission, President Bush said he wishes he had taken a
different tack on climate change and energy policy when he came to office,
stressing early on that the US was committed to reducing carbon emissions and
pursuing new forms of ethanol and hybrid-electric cars.

In response to a question about the widely criticized US stance on
climate change at a Freedom House meeting, Bush on Wednesday said he believed
the globe is warming and restated his desire to cut US oil use.

"I believe the best way to put technologies in place that will not only
achieve national objectives, like less addiction to oil, but also help clean
the air, is to be wealthy enough to invest in technologies, and then to share
those technologies with parts of the world that were excluded from the Kyoto
protocol," he said after a speech.

"...And so I guess I should have started differently when I first became
president and said we will invest in new technologies that will enable us to
use fossil fuels in a much wiser way," he said.

Freedom House is an organization that promotes democracy.

Soon after taking office, the Bush team retired the Clinton
administration's Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, which aimed to
make plug-in electric and hybrid-electric cars widely available, in favor of a
hydrogen research program.

Bush Wednesday touted plug-in cars. "It's possible to have a hybrid
battery breakthrough which says that the first 40 miles of an automobile can
be used by electricity alone," he said.

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