President Bush on the Energy Bill

From a speech by President Bush, delivered today at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, Florida:

I'm looking forward togetting a final budget to my desk that's wise about how we spend your money that's also wise about making sure you got money in your pocket. And you'regoing to need it, because, unfortunately, energy prices are going up. And I know you're concerned about it. And I'm concerned about it, too. I was concerned about it in 2001, when we put together a strategy, an energy strategy, part of which required action by the United States Congress that would encourage conservation, encourage the use of renewable sources of energy like ethanol and biodiesel, that encouraged research and development to figure out better ways to use energy in the long run -- because one of these days we're going to have to change the nature of the automobile by driving hydrogen-powered automobiles, to become less dependent on sources of energy. In other words, there's a lot of things we need to be doing now.

I know we need to be building LNG -- liquified natural gas terminals. We need to do more on nuclear power. Congress needs to get an energy bill. We've been debating whether or not there ought to be an energy bill to my desk now for four years. And that's too much talk, given the fact that consumers are beginning to hurt; too much talk given the fact that the -- we're too dependent on foreign sources of energy. I'm concerned about the energy, and Congress needs to be concerned.