Tuesday, March 09, 2004
By Chris Baltimore, Reuters

WASHINGTON — U.S. voters hit with soaring gasoline prices can choose between two presidential candidates with contrary ways to escape the energy morass: a Democrat pushing conservation and a Republican who wants to drill his way out.

Painting the energy policies of President Bush and his Democrat opponent John Kerry as supply-side versus demand-side risks oversimplification.

But in large part, Bush's energy policy seeks to expand supplies of domestic oil and natural gas, while Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, focuses on developing alternative fuels and renewable sources to reduce U.S. demand for oil.

With retail gasoline prices at a near-record $1.72 per gallon and set to go higher, energy policy could figure prominently in the presidential campaign as voters spend more to fill up their cars.

Last week, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the administration is "extremely concerned" about gasoline prices and renewed his call for Congress to pass an energy bill stalled in the Senate.

Mark Cooper, economist at the Consumer Federation of America, cast the energy issue in this presidential election as "the producers versus the consumers."

"Coming from Massachusetts — an energy-consuming state — you have a completely different world view than coming from Texas, and that's quite clear in energy policy," Cooper said. "You can poke all the holes (in the ground) you want and you're not going to lower the price of oil one penny."

There are some notable overlaps between Bush and Kerry. Both support an Alaskan pipeline to ship natural gas to the lower 48 states, cleaner ways of generating electricity from coal, and zero-emission hydrogen-powered cars.

But the two men differ on many other energy and environmental policies.

Bush, a former Texas oilman, has also called for the nation to reduce oil imports, but for the most part has chosen a different tool to reach that goal: the drilling rig.

But after decades of solid extraction from the Gulf of Mexico and other oil-rich areas, the most promising deposits are on federal lands and off coastal Florida and California. The administration has pushed to ease access to some of these environmentally sensitive areas in the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere. It recently lifted Clinton-era rules that banned drilling on the Otero Mesa in New Mexico.

"The Bush administration will drill at all cost without an environmental sensitivity," said New Mexico Democrat Gov. Bill Richardson, who served as energy secretary under Clinton.

Drilling in Alaska

The cornerstone of the Bush energy plan is to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling, but the Senate has repeatedly blocked passage due to protest from environmentalists.

In contrast, Kerry has supported incentives to drill in noncontroversial areas in the Gulf of Mexico but is opposed to opening sensitive areas like the Arctic refuge.

"We cannot drill our way to independence" from foreign crude oil imports, Kerry's Web site said.

Kerry has called for raising mileage requirements on cars and gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles to 36 miles per gallon from the current 24. He says that change could save 2 million barrels of oil a day, or about 10 percent of the nation's current daily consumption.

Kerry also supports dropping the so-called "SUV loophole" that allows businesses to write off $100,000 if they purchase the gas-guzzling vehicles.

Existing technology like hybrid cars shows more near-term promise than the hydrogen initiative, said William Reilly, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency under the first President George Bush. He is co-chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan panel that will issue energy recommendations this year.

"That's a nut we've got to crack," Reilly said. "The fact that there is existing technology makes it more straightforward than it seems to be politically."

The Bush administration has supported limited mileage increases but has pegged the hydrogen car as the long-term solution to the nation's transportation problems.

Source: Reuters