Clinton Praises Energy Plan and Decathlon Team

In a visit that combined politics and policy, President Clinton launched a new energy-efficiency initiative, attacked a controversial ballot measure and praised the El Camino Real High School academic decathlon champs Monday.

In his first visit to the San Fernando Valley in two years, Clinton used Sylmar as a stage to launch a national initiative to cut energy use in homes by almost 50% through the use of high-tech appliances and building material.

Clinton unveiled the program beneath threatening skies and the frame of a demonstration house that he said would save homeowners more than $230 a year on energy costs over conventional structures.

“It will be the most ambitious effort ever to help private home builders and homeowners make cost-effective, energy-saving decisions that will pay big dividends throughout the 21st century,” Clinton said.

Before leaving Los Angeles, the president congratulated the El Camino Real decathlon team, which won the national championship last month in Providence, R.I., becoming the third Los Angeles school in five years to earn that distinction.

At a brief meeting at Los Angeles International Airport, Clinton talked with the students and autographed a school newspaper. In return, the students presented the president with a few gifts, including a white “Team CA” baseball hat, a white California Academic Decathlon T-shirt and a chocolate medal.

The students said Clinton put them at ease by doing most of the talking, even asking for a few sample quiz questions. The president went one for two, correctly answering a question about current events, but failing on music theory.

“He knows his history,” said Adi Zarchi, 17. “As for the other one, it was a tough question, which most of us couldn’t get anyway.”

Steve Chae, 18, said he will forever remember the moment, especially because the president complimented his tan suit.

“It’s not even a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Chae said. “I mean, not everyone gets to meet the president.”

Principal Ronald Bauer called the meeting “a very wonderful conclusion to all the good that has happened. I suspect the students will be pinching themselves for a while.”

Earlier Clinton pushed the energy-efficient technologies at the site of Village Green, a 186-unit development that will be built next to Sylmar’s Metrolink station, where Clinton announced the initiative.

The project is said to be the largest mass-transit-based housing project in Los Angeles County and the first in the area to incorporate new energy-efficient technologies into affordable housing units.

Enthusiastic local officials said the development will put the northeast Valley on the map as the home of the development of the future.

“I don’t know another place that has transit, housing, energy efficiency, child care and affordable housing in the same place,” said former Assemblyman Richard Katz, who represented the area for many years and is now running for the area’s state Senate seat.

The energy-efficiency initiative is a partnership between the federal government and the home building industry, intended to cut energy use by 50% in homes built over the next 10 years and reduce energy use by 30% in 15 million existing homes.

Clinton said the goal can be reached by relying on new energy-efficient advancements such as washing machines that use 50% less energy and 30% less water and windows with thermal coating that block out heat during the summer.

“If we achieve that goal, it means by the year 2010 we’ll save consumers $11 billion a year in energy costs, reduce annual carbon emissions--listen to this--by 24 million tons, equivalent to the amount produced each year by 20 million cars,” Clinton said.

For the most part, the White House plans to use the bully pulpit, a Web site (www.pathnet.org), and its public-private partnership to promote the initiative. It will also designate the Department of Energy and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to disseminate information on such technologies.

The program will use about $100 million to study new advancements and provide incentives for home builders to use the energy-efficient technologies.

But the major funding for the effort will come only if Clinton can convince Congress to approve a $6.3-billion package of energy-saving measures included in his budget.

During his speech, Clinton urged the 250 or so members of the audience to lobby their representatives in Washington to support the funding package.

“It seems to me that every Republican and every Democrat member of Congress would be for a system of tax credits that actually created a win-win situation,” he said.

The advancements, many of which will be used at Village Green, were demonstrated by television home-repair guru Bob Vila on the frame of a home that will be built on the project site. The development is expected to be completed by next year.

The event attracted just about every Democratic office holder in the region, including Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) and Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who joined the president on the stage.

“Nothing could thrill me more than to have the president in the San Fernando Valley,” Sherman said.

The event was also attended by City Council members Richard Alarcon and Ruth Galanter, San Fernando Mayor Raul Godinez and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.