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Clinton: Let's cut oil use

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

May 24, 2006

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wants Americans to cut their oil and gasoline consumption in half by 2025, arguing that dependence on foreign sources compromises national security by forcing the United States to defend energy assets in the Middle East.

Clinton, repeating many of the same points she made in a similar speech last year, mocked Vice President Dick Cheney for discouraging energy conservation and exhorted President George W. Bush to take on the oil companies. Her remarks came amid increased speculation that Al Gore, a darling of environmentalists, might join the 2008 presidential fray.

"Our present system of energy is weakening our national security," Clinton told a packed house yesterday at the National Press Club. "Right now, instead of national security dictating our energy policy, our failed energy policy dictates our national security."

But Clinton refused to back a proposal by Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-Utica) requiring automakers to retool all vehicles, including sport utility vehicles, so they would collectively average 33 miles a gallon by 2016. The measure is widely supported by House Democrats.

Clinton wants to create a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund, paid for by a windfall tax on Big Oil, used to develop alternative energy sources. She also called for the nationwide use of ethanol, a corn-based fuel and additive.

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt accused Clinton of focusing on conservation at the expense of exploration and increased refinery capacity. "Adopting the energy policies of the 1970s is a price Americans cannot afford," she said, referring to President Jimmy Carter's energy conservation efforts.

Schmitt's comments echoed Cheney's May 2001 remark that "conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

Conservation, Clinton shot back, "is not just a personal virtue, but an important part of any sensible energy policy."

She went on to plug Gore's environmental documentary movie and praised her possible rival as "a committed visionary on global warming for more than two decades."

Later, two anti-war protesters began shouting at the senator and were quickly removed. One of the women resisted press club security, dragging a chair with her out the door.

When a club member asked Clinton whether she regretted her 2002 vote authorizing use of force in Iraq, Clinton replied, "I regret the way the president used the authority he was given."