U.S., British, and Palestinian officials are to meet again Tuesday to work out the details of a plan to end the Israeli military siege around the West Bank headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. 

Yasser Arafat

 The Palestinian leader has remained a virtual prisoner in his offices since December, when Israeli troops positioned tanks around his headquarters.

 Under Mr. Bush's plan, accepted by both sides, Mr. Arafat will be allowed to travel freely after six wanted Palestinian militants are transferred to a Palestinian prison, where they will be guarded by British and U.S. personnel.

 A delegation of British and U.S. representatives is due to inspect the prison facilities in the West Bank city of Jericho, where the militants are to be placed behind bars.
 
 

Colin Powell

 He also said that he expects the stand-off between Israelis and Palestinians around the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to end soon.

 Soldiers continue to surround the shrine, built over the spot where tradition holds Jesus was born, demanding the surrender of wanted Palestinians who have taken refuge inside the sanctuary.

 Meanwhile, Israeli troops continued to launch raids into other parts of the West Bank. Soldiers swept into a village near Bethlehem Tuesday, searching houses and arresting suspected Palestinian militants. 

United Nations relief agencies have said roadblocks and curfews are hampering the movement of humanitarian aid to the West Bank and Gaza. But the agencies say some assistance is getting through. 

U.N. officials have said the problem of access remains "significant and serious" for humanitarian workers trying to bring food and medical supplies to the Palestinian territories. 

The World Food Program said it has delivered food aid to 94,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the end of March, but could reach only 6,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. It said the West Bank assistance could be delivered only to people in hospitals, orphanages, or homes for the elderly. 

Rene Aquarone of the U.N. agency aiding Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the situation in the territories is getting worse because roadblocks hinder aid from getting to the people who need it. 

"Movement of goods in and out of Israel from the only goods crossing, which is called 'Karni,' is also very, very limited. And there are serious shortages in food, in cement, in animal feed for chicken farms, and this kind of thing has taken place. UNRWA has had to loan 250 tons of flour to the Palestinian Authority for it to sell to the local bakeries so that people can actually have bread," he said. 

The World Health Organization said it has flown emergency medical kits to treat 200,000 Palestinians to Amman, Jordan, after Israel refused permission for the plane to land in Tel Aviv. It said it hopes to bring the medical aid to the Palestinian territories overland. 

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Yaacov Levy, said his country is working closely with aid agencies to ease difficulties faced in the Palestinian territories. He said roadblocks and curfews are necessary because of the continued threat of Palestinian suicide bombings. 

"There are still some difficulties freely moving around because of these major security threats we are still facing. But I can show you a list of massive medical supplies and donations, which came into Israel and the Palestinian territories over the past 10 days from around the world," Mr. Levy said. 

U.N. officials estimate the Israeli military incursions in the West Bank caused about $300 million worth of damage. They have said that includes more than $100 million in damage in the town of Nablus and more than $40 million in damage in the Jenin refugee camp. 

The government of the United Arab Emirates said it will fund the reconstruction of the refugee camp at Jenin. 

Authorities in Spain have arrested 11 people they say directed the financial infrastructure of the Basque separatist group ETA. 

Police arrested the suspected members of ETA in a series of raids Monday and early Tuesday in the Basque Country and Navarre in northern Spain. 

More than 200 agents took part in the operation, which police say followed more than three years of investigations. 

All those arrested are members of ETA's political wing, Batasuna, including the party's treasurer and several town councilors. In France, police said they seized a van filled with documents from Batasuna's headquarters in the Spanish province of Guipuzcoa. 

Spanish Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy said the suspects are accused of running a financial operation that raised about $10 million a year for ETA through a complex of businesses. He said the businesses were used to launder money collected through the so-called revolutionary tax extorted from businessmen in the Basque Country and Navarre. 

Authorities said an important part of the business operation is a network of bars and restaurants used as social centers by radical separatists to recruit and train activists. 

Interior Minister Rajoy said the operation underlined the urgency of a government-sponsored bill in parliament aimed at banning Batasuna, which he said is part of ETA's terrorist infrastructure. He called on Spain's main opposition Socialist party to support the measure. 

Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has made the fight against terrorism a major priority. 

ETA is blamed for more than 800 killings in a more than 40-year campaign to established an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southern France. 

AP
Queen Elizabeth II addresses parliment standing alongside her husband, Prince Philip

 With pomp and ceremony, Queen Elizabeth, accompanied by her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, entered Westminster Hall for the historic speech. It was only the fifth time she has made this kind of speech to such a gathering of political leaders.

 Introducing the monarch, the speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, spoke about how the times have changed since she took the throne in 1952 and the importance to the British people of her role over that time.
 
 

"Amidst this sea of change," said Mr. Martin, "the monarchy has acted as a beacon of stability, a unifying influence for her people. But it is not simply the throne that we honor here today, it is your personal contribution that we have reason to give thanks for." 

Fifty years is a long time in any job, and over that span the queen has seen many changes, both good and bad. But as she said in her speech, change is inevitable, the ability to manage it is what is important.
 
 

"If a Jubilee becomes a moment to define an age, then for me, we must speak of change - its breadth and accelerating pace over these years," said the British monarch. "Since 1952, I have witnessed the transformation of the international landscape through which this country must chart its course: the emergence of a commonwealth, the growth of the European Union, the end of the cold war, and now the dark threat of international terrorism." 

Queen Elizabeth also spoke of what she called the enduring British values of moderation, tolerance and service in coping with new and ever changing challenges.

 Over the next 15 weeks, the 76-year-old queen will get a personal glimpse of just how closely those values are held today when she tours every region in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as part of her Golden Jubilee swing through Britain. 

A U.N. trade official has warned that many developing countries are ill-prepared for the global pressures to open markets to international trade. The warning came at a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Bangkok. 

Developing and newly-industrializing countries are struggling with the pace of globalization, and are in need of support or greater access to international markets to overcome poverty. This was the message delivered at a meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development by deputy secretary general Carlos Fortin. 

The meeting is a midterm review of UNCTAD's current four-year program on development and trade in the developing and industrializing countries. 

An UNCTAD report released at the meeting said the sweeping changes in the global and regional economies are posing formidable challenges to countries across the Asia Pacific region. The report said challenges for many countries come amid increasing globalization and the accelerated efforts towards regional and subregional economic and trade cooperation. 

Mr. Fortin, in an opening speech, said many poor countries acknowledge difficulties coping with rapidly changing international environment. He said globalization has unleashed forces that generate uncertainty, intensify poverty in poor countries and are difficult to control through unilateral action. 

"Under these conditions expecting developing countries to further open their markets without providing effective multilateral support or giving them possibilities to export their way out of underdevelopment and poverty would be a self defeating strategy," Mr. Fortin said. 

He said the recent successful World Trade Organization meeting on further trade liberalization will pose new challenges for UNCTAD in supporting developing countries during the next round of negotiations. 

Elecrical energy from wind power

Renewable energy advocates had fought long and hard for the credit but congress didn't act until the politically influential agriculture industry joined the lobbying effort. Even as earnings from traditional crop and livestock sales have fallen to historic lows, American farmers and ranchers have discovered they can earn money from wind power. As a result, they've put their political muscle behind this emerging industry. 

The federal wind power tax credit that Congress passed last March was a key factor in the decision by Vestas Wind Systems, a major developer of wind turbines, to build a new production plant here in Oregon. 

Senator Gordon Smith

 It's not often farmers and environmentalists find themselves on the same side of an issue. In this case, Rachel Shimshack with the Renewable Northwest Project, says the alliance formed out of circumstance. "It turns out," Ms. Shimshack said, "the best wind resources happen to be located in rural parts of our states."

 And, she says, that's where farms and ranches are. "It just so happened that the representatives that are located in those places were the swing votes and those people pledged to help," she said. It's likely the alliance will endure. 

Jean Wilkenson is a lobbyist for the private Oregon Farm Bureau. She says increased foreign competition and stubbornly low commodity prices in recent years have hit the U.S. agriculture industry hard, and farmers are looking for ways to earn some extra cash. They've found a good one, says Ms. Wilkenson, in wind power. "That is something new," she said. "In prior years, of course, farmers may not have known much about energy and electricity and power generation and certainly wind power generation."
 
 

A wind power farm provides electricity

The only complaint some farmers have is that companies aren't willing to locate more windmills on their land. That's one reason agriculture is supporting legislation that would provide additional incentives for wind power developers. Now, with the support of farm groups, wind energy supporters are looking at new proposals to help the emerging industry. 

Pat Egan, an advisor to Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, says the state is considering a local tax credit that would be applied only if the federal credit were unavailable. "What that would do," Mr. Egan said, "is provide some stability in both the development side for projects and actually the manufacturing side as well, to make sure that the market is on-going and more stable."
 
 

A crew celebrates after raising another windmill site

The Potential of Wind Power
 
 

Lester Brown

 Supporters of the Bush energy plan say it is the quickest way to reliably meet the nation's growing energy needs. But advocates of wind power point out that worldwide, wind power use has increased nearly fourfold over the last five years. Denmark which gets 15 percent of its electricity from wind power is a dominant player in the global wind industry market, as are Germany and Spain. 

 Lester Brown says farmers and ranchers could reap enormous economic benefits from wind farms. For example, he says surplus wind power can be stored as hydrogen and used in gas turbines to generate electricity or to run the nation's fleet of automobiles. "We're looking at a future far different from the past," he said. "In the United States, for example, this means we can reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and all the uncertainties that brings with it."

 The American Wind Energy Association expects a 60 percent growth in wind-generating capacity this year in the United States. A 3,000-megawatt wind farm in the early planning stages in South Dakota near the Iowa border could supply electricity to some three million homes once it is operational. Lester Brown says the proposed project is not only large by wind power standards, but it is one of the largest energy projects of any kind in the world today. 

State of the Animals 2001
 
 

Rowan Andrew

"Most of the animals are raised under intensive conditions, that is from birth to death they live in sheds, packed into close quarters, with one another and [are] increasingly unable to carry out the behaviors thought to be normal for a chicken or a pig," he says. "Cattle aren't as bad as that, but even with cattle you have large numbers kept in feed lots."

 "State of the Animals 2001" is the first in a series of reports planned on the state of animal protection in North America and worldwide. The publication is available on the United States Humane Society website.

Recent tensions about world oil supplies have put a spotlight on wind and solar power. After all, both are renewable energy sources, found within every nation's borders. 

 "I like to pass these around. They're very thin," said scientist Ed Witt.

 The glittery blue wafer in Ed Witt's hand is no larger than a greeting card. But photovoltaic cells such as these are mighty, they can power everything from solar calculators to satellites. To demonstrate the latest technologies, Mr. Witt leads me to an outdoor testing site.

 "Here you're going to see arrays made of a lot of different kinds of solar cells, and we're going to have a little walk down through here," he said. 

We amble past rows of solar panels, some developed here, and some sent to Golden by companies that collaborate with N-REL. Many use new thin-film methods, which are more economical than traditional wafers. And one display looks like shiny roof tiles, because that's what they are shingles that double as solar collectors.

 "If we were standing 15 feet away, or it was on a roof that was above us, we might never notice that it's anything other than shingle material," said Mr. Witt.
 
 

N-REL

"That's important because the world looks to us," Mr. Witt said. "They say, wow! What is the U.S. doing, and what is the National Lab for the U.S. doing? And it's what we're doing here. And so it's extremely important, Both from the point of view of lending credence to the technologies themselves, but it's also important in terms of sort of being the leader and moving in that direction." 

When this laboratory was established in 1977, its scientists focused on solar power. Now, the more than 1,000 researchers and staff at N-REL develop everything from wind power to biomass technology, which involves using organic waste products to create clean-burning energy. And, Mr. Witt says, in the last 25 years they've gotten much closer to their original goal of harnessing solar power.

 "The cost has come down by factors of certainly more than ten, probably about a hundred during that time," he said. 

Solar cells

N-REL also develops wind machines. And in case you're imagining a rickety wooden windmill, think again.
 
 

 "Wind energy is the most rapid growing form of energy in the world at this point. In the last three years, it's grown at an average rate of about 30 percent per year," he said. 

Mr. Thresher says many European countries are ahead of the United States in this field, because they tax fossil fuel use heavily, then subsidize their wind power programs. But he believes N-REL's efforts can make wind power competitive in America's more unregulated energy marketplace. 

As the N-REL scientists develop these renewable sources of energy, Ed Witt says they are also laying the groundwork for a more peaceful world.

 "All people need security, and this is a source of security for all of us. Independent of what your beliefs are or what cultures you come from," he said. "Here's a place where you can get the energy that you need in order to be self-sufficient."

 With international collaboration in clean renewable energy projects, the National Renewable Energy Lab is helping dozens of other nations reach that goal. 

Wind power is the fastest growing alternative energy source in the world today. In the United States, the pace of wind power development was recently given a boost when the U.S. Congress renewed a tax incentive for companies to invest in wind energy. One of the beneficiaries could be a proposed project off the Atlantic coast of Cape Cod, in the northeastern state of Massachusetts . If built, it would be the nation's first off-shore wind farm. But the project faces fierce opposition from local residents.

Glance at a map of the New England coast and it's clear why the Cape Wind project appears so promising to its supporters. Cape Cod juts dramatically out into the Atlantic Ocean, where the average wind speed is higher and steadier than on the mainland. But some Cape residents believe a massive wind power project will ruin the area's most important asset: its natural beauty. 

"In front of us you can actually see Martha's Vineyard in the distance. And that is approximately 20 miles (32 kilometers) away from us," says Alice Fardy, who owns the Oceanside Motel, located on the shore of Nantucket Sound. As she gazes out at the Sound from the motel's deck, she explains why she opposes the Cape Wind project. "Now Martha's Vineyard is not a very high mass of land. However, the wind farm is proposing to put 170 towers only 6 miles [10 kilometers] out directly in front of us and of course these things are going to be very visible to the public. There's no way that they aren't going to be able to see these towers at only 6 miles [10 km] away." 

Not surprisingly, Brian Braggington Smith, one of the partners in the international consortium that owns Cape Wind, has a different view. Mr. Smith says what's most important is that Cape Wind could eventually produce the equivalent of half the Cape's annual electricity needs. "Here we have the fastest growing energy resource in the world, we have the best wind in the country, some of the best people in the world, and we have a net energy demand that is growing at a very rapid pace in a region that has no other indigenous resources other than this," he says. 

With their huge rotating blades fully extended, the Cape Wind turbines will each be forty stories high. Opponents like to point out that this would make them taller than the Statue of Liberty. Longtime Cape resident Peter Hickman says that would create an eyesore for tourists and residents alike. "We think that this would represent an industrial intrusion, degradation is the right word, of a beautiful pristine body of water," he says. "If we lose our coastal waters, Cape Cod might as well be plunked down in the middle of Ohio." 

But supporters of the Cape Wind project, including many in the scientific community, argue that its environmental benefits are well worth the impact it might have on the local scenery. Joe Hackler is a scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. He says where you stand on the issue depends on your values. "People who have waterfront properties and who have yachts feel that it's a detriment to their experience out in Nantucket Sound," he says. "For those of us who are concerned about climate change, toxification, human health implications of the use of fossil fuels, these tiny little specks on the landscape are sort of an exciting thing." 

Peter Hickman bristles at the notion that only well-moneyed yacht owners oppose the project. Indeed, commercial fishermen worry that because the turbines would be located in prime fishing ground, they could interfere with harvesting. Local officials say the project would harm the tourism business. Opposition is so strong that none of the candidates running for Governor of Massachusetts this year have endorsed the project. 

At a recent gubernatorial debate on the Cape, one candidate, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, argued that there are two types of environmentalism of equal value. "We talk about one aspect and that's renewable energy, clean air, clean water here on the Cape and everywhere around Massachusetts and we need it. But one aspect of environmentalism that's not talked about often enough in my view is scenic beauty and preserving the scenic beauty of the Cape and everywhere else." 

Even without the opposition, Cape Wind has a long way to go before it can become a reality. The proposal has to be studied and approved by federal and state agencies, a process that could take two years. Regulators will use that time to decide, among other things, whether the need to preserve an area's natural beauty outweighs the need to support a clean and inexhaustible energy source. 

America's ability to provide for its energy needs has come into sharp focus since the September 11 terrorist attacks along the East Coast. Concerns over the security of centralized energy plants and the country's dependence on foreign oil are topics of debate from small Midwestern communities to Capitol Hill. As utility companies continue to look toward alternative means of supplying energy to consumers, the western state of South Dakota has joined the ranks of those states exploring wind power as a renewable energy option. In South Dakota, residents are doing something they don't normally do, praising the infamous Northern Plains winds. 

Mention South Dakota's weather to most residents and they'll think of one word: wind. It blows massive snowdrifts in the winter and can bring turbulent rainstorms during the summer. In fact, South Dakotans have a long and proud history of overcoming the negative aspects of living in a state with so much wind. Little did they think they'd ever be able to harness it or earn a profit in the process. 

South Dakota U.S. Senator Tim Johnson is a staunch supporter of wind power. He sees it as a solution to the country's energy needs as well as a great opportunity for Americans living in rural areas. 

"Wind energy would allow us to reduce our reliance on unstable non-democratic foreign source of petroleum and gas," he said. "It would be good for the environment in terms of clean air and clean water. It would create jobs in rural America that we've never had before. It would create an income flow to farmers, ranchers and tribes as well, for the utilization of their land and generate this energy and the transmission lines to carry this energy. So I think it would be win, win, win across the board for the United States, for rural areas, for farmers, ranchers, tribes, Native Americans." 

"The industry is taking off, actually exploding, quite frankly, around the U.S.," he said. "Five or seven years ago it was fairly slow in this industry, but things have come around. Our power is now about the same price as any other energy source. So we're becoming the cheapest alternative to electricity. It's really a Godsend in the areas of the Midwest. It's an exciting new development." 

That "exciting new development" can bring landowners between $2,000-$4,000 annually for every wind turbine erected on their property. The thought of pulling in that much money just for letting someone put a bunch of windmills on their land is a thought that many ranchers and farmers find very appealing. 

"I think it has opportunities, but I think you have to go into a relationship with a developer with your eyes wide open," said Greg Dean. Mr. Dean is negotiating with a developer that wants to erect wind turbines on his family's cattle and grain farm. He says he's all for the benefits of wind energy, but it's important to find someone to read the fine print. 

"These are typically very long term contracts - 20 to 50 years depending on the developer you're dealing with," he said. "You have to look at these as a business deal. It's not just a handshake, that looks good to me, kind of situation. You need to look at a variety of different options. It presents both opportunities and challenges. And I think it has some significant benefits to a landowner, but it's not a gravy train." 

With energy demand and prices increasing across the country, developing economical alternatives to traditional energy sources seems like an obvious plan of action especially in South Dakota, where most electricity is generated by dams on the Missouri River. 

"The tribes in North and South Dakota have a potential wind resource that's fabulous, said Bob Gough, energy consultant for South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux tribe. "It's 125 times the power that comes off the Missouri River in the form of electricity." 

Mr. Gough says the U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that wind power from the Great Plains could provide 75% of the energy needed by the lower 48 states - making the Dakotas the "Saudi Arabia of wind." He says that many American Indian tribes are exploring the use of wind turbines as an energy alternative. 

"Tribes around the country have engaged in renewable energy programs to develop it," he said. "Whether you're on an island off the coast of Alaska - the St. Paul Island has got a wind turbine project up there - the tribes on the Great Plains, like the Blackfeet, have been looking at a large, 20 to perhaps 50 megawatt wind farm out in Montana, tribes in the Dakotas have been looking at the potential for anything from single turbine projects to multi-megawatt wind farms." 

Spirits were not dampened a bit by the lack of prairie winds that day to get the turbines moving. 

As turbine company spokesman Paul White pointed out, even wind isn't a perfect solution to America's energy needs. "It's an intermittent resource," he said. "There are periods when the wind is low, or there is no wind. So, it's a supplementary resource. It offsets burning coal." 

Coal is still a major source of energy in the United States, but Public Utilities Commissioner Jim Burg says he wants to see wind turbines across his state and he's willing to go overseas to Denmark, France, Argentina or China to get help. 

"We should get a grid manager from one of those countries that are using a high percentage of wind to come over and tell us how they're managing that," he said. "How they're putting that inconsistent source of power into the grid and still having reliable energy. And I think that we could learn a lot from them." 

Mr. Burg says that all South Dakotans should unite toward one goal. "Harness the wind, the thing that we've cussed for as long as all of us have been in South Dakota and now put into some real use," he said. 

Lester Brown with the Earth Policy Institute in Washington calls wind power the missing link in the Bush Administration energy plan.
 
 

 "The wind bandwagon around the world is just gaining an enormous amount of momentum," he says. "Both because the cost of generating energy from wind is dropping so fast and also because there is growing concern about climate change."

 Supporters of the Bush energy plan say it is the quickest way to reliably meet the nation's growing energy needs. But advocates of wind power point out that worldwide, wind power use has increased nearly fourfold over the last five years. 

Minnesota wind farm

 A U.S. Department of Energy survey of wind resources in the United States found that three states - North Dakota, Kansas and Texas could harness enough energy from wind to supply the electricity needs of the entire nation. Advocates say while that is technologically possible, it would take at least 20 years to implement if the government were to make a policy and funding commitment to support such a system.

 Lester Brown says farmers and ranchers could reap enormous economic benefits from wind farms. For example, he says surplus wind power can be stored as hydrogen and used in gas turbines to generate electricity or to run the nation's fleet of automobiles. "We're looking at a future far different from the past," he says. "In the United States, for example, this means we can reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and all the uncertainties that brings with it."

 The American Wind Energy Association expects a 60 percent growth in wind-generating capacity this year in the United States. A 3,000-megawatt wind farm in the early planning stages in South Dakota near the Iowa border could supply electricity to some three million homes once it is operational.

 Lester Brown says the proposed project is not only large by wind power standards, but it is one of the largest energy projects of any kind in the world today.

As California's energy crisis deepens, some religious leaders in the West Coast state have criticized the Bush administration's energy plan. The clergymen say the plan does not focus enough on conservation. The group has signed an open letter addressed to President Bush.
 
 

Episcopal Bishop Frederick Borsch

 Outside the West Los Angeles federal building, a dozen religious leaders signed an open letter to the President, urging a stronger focus on conservation. The document takes its theme from the opening words of the Bible, "Let there be light." The clergymen say they are prompted in part by California's energy crisis, which has resulted in rolling blackouts, but say they are even more concerned with issues like global warming. Most scientists say it is caused by so-called "greenhouse gases," many of which are produced by human activity.
 
 

Lee Wallach signs an open letter to President

 Californians face soaring utility rates, and gasoline prices here are among the highest in the country. The religious coalition is urging a range of remedies, from expanded mass transit to reduce air emissions, to help for the poor in paying their energy bills. The religious leaders are also urging U.S. officials to accept the conservation targets of the Kyoto Protocol. Much of the world embraces the international agreement, but the Bush administration says it places unfair limits on industrial nations like the United States, and that it would further harm a slowing U.S. economy.

 The religious leaders say they are speaking out on an ethical, not a political, issue. Yet they repeat some political charges of administration critics like California's governor, Gray Davis. Mr. Davis, and the clergymen, say energy producers are driving power prices up and that federal officials are failing to intervene.

 But on the issue of conservation, the religious leaders hope to find common ground with President Bush, who has also acknowledged the need for conservation.

 Lee Wallach says religious officials in California, from Jews to Orthodox Christians, are divided on many issues, but not on this one. "This is very much an interfaith effort. The Los Angeles Interfaith Environmental Council represents a wide number of views in the faith community, but on this issue, we're all very, very united," he said. "This is an issue that affects every one of our communities and this is an issue that we can all speak with one voice."

 The protest meeting in Los Angeles was held in coordination with an interfaith rally in Washington, on the steps of the Capitol building. 

Photos provided by Mike O'Sullivan

President Bush signs energy order outside Pennsylvania hydroelectric power plant, 18 May 2001

President Carter's handling of the energy crisis in the late 1970s has become a kind of political guidebook of how not to deal with energy problems. His insistence that Americans drive less, wear sweaters to keep warm and turn down their thermostats to conserve energy did not sit well with the public. "All of us must learn to waste less energy," he told Americans.
 
 

Jimmy Carter

 The Carter experience is clearly on the minds of Bush administration officials as they go about the business of selling the president's energy plan. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham spoke about it on NBC television: "He [Carter] presided over probably the worst era, in terms of energy policy, in American history. We don't want to repeat those mistakes. We want to make sure that we don't have [cars waiting in] gas lines, like we did back during his administration. We want to move forward positively and optimistically."
 
 

Spencer Abraham

 Tom Defrank, the Washington bureau chief for the New York Daily News, a guest on VOA's program 'Issues in the News', said, "The American people are reluctant to feel like this is a real, honest-to-goodness crisis. But, I will tell you that it could be a political crisis in the short term for President Bush because of that. Because, if gasoline goes to $3 a gallon, Bush is not going to be able to say that Bill Clinton had eight years to fix this, and he did not do anything, and it's his fault. That won't fly, politically. He is the president now."

 Political analysts also predict that the president's reluctance to offer a short-term fix for the nation's energy problems will complicate efforts to win support for the Bush plan in Congress.

 For David Lightman, who reports on Congress for the Hartford Courant newspaper, and also a guest on the 'Issues in the News' program, "It is almost a situation he [Bush] can't control. If the [fuel] prices drop, supplies are plentiful, this [issue] goes on the back burner, with small business and science and other sort of second-tier Washington issues. If prices go through the roof, there is not a lot he can do unilaterally; there is not a lot he can do immediately, and he gets all the blame."

 Some Republicans in Congress fear that rising gas prices will spark an angry response from voters in next year's congressional elections, and could threaten the Republicans' tenuous hold on the House and Senate.

 For Tom Defrank, "The president has got three more years to fix this from a political context. But members of his own [Republican] party are screaming and saying to his political advisers: 'Look, the November 2002 [congressional] elections are not that far away. We are going to get killed. If you want to lose the House of Representatives, keep saying you are not going to do anything now [about rising fuel prices], it's a long term problem.' At the White House, they are saying [to Republicans in Congress] 'You are just going to have to tough it out and it will be OK.' Well, it may be OK for him [Bush] in 2004. It may not be OK for his party in 2002."

 The cornerstone of the Bush plan is expanded drilling for new supplies of oil and natural gas. Republicans believe this is the best approach to assure reliable supplies of energy in the long term.

 Many Democrats oppose drilling in environmentally sensitive areas like the Alaskan wildlife refuge, and would prefer to see more of an emphasis on alternative energy sources and conservation. 

Mr. Bush used a hydro-electric power plant along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania as the backdrop for a speech in which he emphasized the conservation and renewable-energy aspects of his program.

 But at the same time, he insisted again that conservation and alternate sources alone will not solve what he says are the most serious energy problems facing the United States since the oil embargo of the 1970's.
 
 

President Bush signs energy order outside Pennsylvania hydroelectric power plant, 18 May 2001

Mr. Bush defended the most controversial aspect of his program opening the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling saying only a tiny fraction of the area would be used. 

He said opponents of his proposal to expand existing nuclear power plants and possibly build new ones - should recognize that nuclear technology is much safer than it was when the last new plants in the United States were licensed in the 1970's.

 While not directly attacking his critics among Congressional Democrats and the environmental movement, Mr. Bush said he rejects the notion that the United States has to choose between economic growth and a clean environment. And he said the tone of debate in Washington can use some improvement. "People would rather argue than discuss. They'd rather call names rather than come up with solutions," he said. " They'd rather point fingers at people rather than holding out the hand of constructive dialogue. And it's got to change. And this is an administration that's committed committed to putting the people ahead of politics."

 Mr. Bush signed two executive orders in Pennsylvania for energy steps not requiring Congressional action. One will expedite the approval of permits for energy projects, and the other requires federal agencies to take effects on energy supplies into account when issuing new regulations.