Reply #27: NYT: Bush's Goals on Energy Quickly Find Obstacles(pissed the Saudis off)

[Pirate Smile]

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — The energy proposals set out on Tuesday by President Bush quickly ran into obstacles on Wednesday, showing how difficult it will be to take even the limited steps he supports to reduce the nation's reliance on foreign oil.

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Diplomatically, Mr. Bush's ambitious call for the replacement of 75 percent of the United States' Mideast oil imports with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025 upset Saudi Arabia, the main American oil supplier in the Persian Gulf. In an interview on Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said he would have to "seek an explanation" from Mr. Bush.

-snip-
The administration's more immediate international brushfire after the president's address was Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil supplier and the United States' main supplier in the Persian Gulf. Analysts said they were startled that Mr. Bush singled out the Middle East with implicit criticism, and on the very day that the Saudis provided important support for American interests at a meeting in Vienna of ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

At the meeting, Saudi Arabia blocked an effort by Venezuela and Iran to reduce the group's oil production.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/02/politics/02energy.html?hp&ex=1138856400&en=23ab929fe851f0ad&ei=5094&partner=homepage

I believe we have found the answer for this:

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports

By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.
But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are.

The president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted to oil" and his call to "break this addiction." Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."
Not exactly, though, it turns out.

-snip-
Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands." The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/13767738.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_nation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2080084&mesg_id=2080084