Breckenridge – U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Tuesday endorsed efforts to develop “clean” energy while also calling on Congress to pass President Bush’s energy bill that would increase oil and gas exploration.
Speaking at the last day of the Western Governors’ Association annual conference, Bodman said the country must decrease its reliance on international supplies of oil and develop alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and nuclear power.
“It is more important than ever to make the best possible use of these resources,” he said.
To that end, he also endorsed the work at Golden’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a leader in research of clean energy but an agency that has faced mixed messages of support from various presidential administrations over the years.
“NREL is essential to the department’s core energy mission. … We feel quite strongly about that,” Bodman said.
Bush’s energy bill languished in Congress last year, but in April the White House won passage in the House and is expecting a vote in the Senate as early as next week.
The bill would require increased energy conservation by utilities and reduce U.S. oil consumption by a million barrels a day by 2015, among many other provisions such as a controversial initiative to open a portion of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.
Susan Tierney, an energy consultant serving on the National Commission for Energy Policy, told the panel of governors from seven Western states and premiers from three Canadian provinces that coal, gas and nuclear power all need to figure in the mix for future demands, along with addressing issues such as climate change, oil security and energy efficiency.
“You can see that there’s no silver bullet. Everything is needed in there,” she said, touting a proposed amendment to the Senate energy bill that would find a middle ground between national energy demands and environmental concerns.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat and former secretary of energy under President Clinton, applauded the Senate’s version of the energy bill, which would impose strict limitations on companies that produce greenhouse gases, unlike the House version favored by the White House.
“The House version is a disaster,” said Richardson, a strong proponent of solar- and wind-energy development.
Despite increased focus nationally on gaining energy independence, Robert Ebel, chairman of the CSIS Energy Program, told the panel that only another crisis such as the 1970s OPEC oil embargo would result in major changes in demand for oil.
“The American people,” Ebel said, “have lost the political will to bring about changes on both sides of supply and demand.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
