Bush Calls for Cuts in Oil Reliance

President Bush warned Tuesday that the United States had become “addicted to oil,” much of it coming from unstable parts of the world, and called for a 20-year national effort to develop new sources of energy to replace imported fuel.

In his annual State of the Union message, this one at the beginning of the sixth year of his presidency, Bush delivered an unapologetic defense of his national security policies, from the continuing war in Iraq to increased electronic surveillance of communications at home.

The president also proposed a flurry of domestic initiatives -- on energy, education and healthcare -- that he said would help keep the United States competitive in the global economy.

White House aides said Bush was mindful that his standing had sagged in public opinion surveys largely because of public disquiet about the economy, healthcare and education -- issues on which most voters say they trust Democrats more than they trust the president.

In a year when Republicans in Congress face a tough campaign to maintain their control of both houses, the president sought to assure voters that he understood what one aide called their “angst.”

“It’s ... unsettling for the American people to grapple with the rising cost of energy, the rising cost of healthcare,” White House counselor Dan Bartlett told reporters shortly before the speech. “The dynamic aspect of our economy, where jobs are constantly being created and lost ... the rising competition of global players on the economic scene, such as China and India, all give a level of angst.”

In their official responses, Democrats accused Bush of “poor choices and bad management,” and they called on voters to replace the Republican congressional leadership this fall.

“Over the past five years, we’ve gone from huge surpluses to massive deficits,” Virginia’s newly elected Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said. “No parent makes their child pay the mortgage. Why should we allow this administration to pass down the bill for its reckless spending to our children and grandchildren?”

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, delivering a second Democratic response in Spanish, charged: “Under this administration, 4 million people have fallen from the working class into the ranks of the poor, and the new jobs that are being created pay less than the ones we’ve lost.” In an echo of Bush, he called for “an aggressive national strategy ... to promote America’s competitiveness in the global economy.”

Bush presented his new proposals on energy, education and healthcare as part of a drive to make the U.S. economy more competitive.

“The American economy is preeminent, but we cannot afford to be complacent,” he said. “In a dynamic world economy, we are seeing new competitors like China and India. This creates uncertainty, which makes it easier to feed people’s fears.... Americans should not fear our economic future, because we intend to shape it.”

On energy, the president -- a former oilman from Texas whose first-term energy policies emphasized promoting more oil exploration and refining -- said it was time for the United States to “move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.”

He said he would ask Congress to fund a 22% increase in federal energy research to focus on cleaner coal-fired plants, nuclear energy, hydrogen fuel cells, better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and ethanol made from agricultural waste.

The federal government has long subsidized the manufacture of ethanol, a fuel made from corn that can be blended with gasoline, but ethanol constitutes only about 2% of fuel sold in the United States. Bush said that with new research, ethanol could also be derived efficiently from wood chips, wheat stalks and other sources.

“Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years,” he said.

His proposal drew mixed responses from energy experts and environmentalists.

“If you want to talk about a Manhattan Project investment in alternative fuel sources for transportation, I’ll stand up and cheer,” said Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at UC Berkeley who has been critical of the administration’s earlier energy policies. “I think that’s money very well spent.... But the funding increase for clean energy research is shockingly small. [This is] hardly the Manhattan Project equivalent on energy that we need.”

Borenstein said that Bush’s call to reduce U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil by 75% was less dramatic than it may sound. The United States imports about 60% of its oil from other countries, but less than one-fifth of those imports comes from the Middle East. That amounts to roughly 10% of total U.S. oil consumption.

But Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said he welcomed Bush’s “recognition ... that we can’t go on indefinitely depending on petroleum. That’s not what he was saying when he became president.”

Bush did not call for complete “energy independence,” a goal that was sought by Presidents Nixon and Carter in the 1970s.

On education, Bush announced what he called a “competitiveness initiative” to increase funding for technology research and improved science and mathematics teaching in elementary and high schools.

The 10-year, $136-billion proposal, which aides said was based on recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, includes an estimated $86 billion to make permanent the tax credits for business spending on research and development, a program popular in the business community.

“We need to encourage children to take more math and science, and make sure those courses are rigorous enough to compete with other nations,” Bush said.

On healthcare, Bush said he would support proposals to “confront the rising cost of care ... and help people afford the insurance coverage they need.” Bush did not elaborate in his speech, but the White House released a fact sheet saying that it planned to propose several changes that would make most healthcare spending tax-deductible for consumers who used health savings accounts, which are individual savings accounts designed for medical expenses.

The White House said the proposals would encourage many more people to sign up for the accounts. Critics charge that increased reliance on health savings accounts would encourage employers to reduce the amount of traditional health insurance they offered their employees.

Bush stuck to his theme of competitiveness as he reminded Congress of a list of other long-standing proposals, including his call for sweeping change in the Social Security system, which stalled despite a major presidential effort last year, and for a guest-worker program to legally employ more immigrants, which has drawn opposition from many Republicans.

“Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security, yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away,” he said. He proposed a bipartisan commission to study “the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” the federal healthcare program for the poor.

“We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy, even though the economy could not function without them,” he said.

Competitiveness should also impel Congress to embrace his proposals to make the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 permanent, Bush said; those tax cuts are scheduled to expire over the next few years. And he renewed, in the name of competitiveness, his plea for fiscal responsibility, and endorsed the call of congressional reformers to reduce the use of “earmarks” -- legislation that designates federal money for individual projects in members’ districts.

On foreign policy, Bush combined a plea for bipartisanship with a stark warning that he would continue to label opponents of the war in Iraq as “defeatists.”

“We have benefited from responsible criticism and counsel offered by members of Congress of both parties,” he said. “In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.... Second-guessing is not a strategy.”

He called on critics to stop questioning the decisions that led to the war, saying: “However we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our nation has only one option: We must keep our word, defeat our enemies and stand behind the American military in its vital mission.”

He repeated his warning that “the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons,” and urged the Iranian people: “Win your own freedom.”

The president ended his speech with a passage on one of his favorite themes: making personal responsibility a touchstone of American culture.

Noting that abortion, teen pregnancy and drug use among teenagers had all declined, Bush said: “These gains are evidence of a quiet transformation: a revolution of conscience, in which a rising generation is finding that a life of personal responsibility is a life of fulfillment.”

He said the federal government had helped nurture that new sense of responsibility. “Wise policies such as welfare reform, drug education and support for abstinence and adoption have made a difference in the character of our country,” he said.

“We must never give in to the belief that America is in decline, or that our culture is doomed to unravel,” he said. “The American people know better than that.”

Then, in his only direct reference to recent investigations of lobbyists and congressional fundraising, he said: “A hopeful society expects elected officials to uphold the public trust. Honorable people in both parties are working on reforms to strengthen the ethical standards of Washington, and I support your efforts.”

As has become a tradition in recent years, First Lady Laura Bush sat in the House gallery with several veterans of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as parents and widows of service members who died in combat.

This year, the special guests included a military dog: Rex, a 5-year-old German shepherd who -- along with his handler, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jamie Dana -- survived an explosion in Iraq in June. After Dana recovered from her wounds, she sought to adopt Rex, who had stayed by her side after the incident. It took special legislation to waive a law that prohibits the adoption of working military dogs before the end of their normal careers.

While Rex lay quietly in an aisle of the House gallery for the duration of Bush’s 52-minute speech, another famous spectator was ejected.

Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, was arrested and removed from the gallery shortly before the speech began.

Sheehan, who was invited to attend the speech by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), was charged with unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor, because she was wearing a T-shirt with an antiwar slogan and reportedly did not respond to a Capitol police officer who warned her that displaying the shirt was not allowed.

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Times staff writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Nicole Gaouette, Janet Hook, Richard Simon and Nick Timiraos contributed to this report.

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Over a barrel

America’s use of oil as a main power source, declining domestic production and continuing Persian Gulf imports make the country increasingly dependent on other countries for its energy.

U.S. energy consumption by source, January-October 2005

Oil: 40%

Coal: 23%

Natural gas: 23%

Nuclear: 8%

Other*: 6%

*Includes renewable sources such as hydroelectric, biomass, geothermal, solar and wind.

Source: Energy Information Administration.

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Graphics reporting by Tom Reinken