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CNN Live Saturday
President Bush Urges Congress To Pass Energy Bill
Aired August 16, 2003 - 14:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTY PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Well President Bush is calling on congress to send him an energy bill to fix some of the problems behind the blackout. That angle on the story from White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux at the Presidents ranch in Texas. Good Saturday to you, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well hi Christy. President Bush is back at the Crawford ranch after two days in California, that is where he did some fund raising. Also he highlighted his environmental policies. This is something the president talked about today in weekly radio address, but the president also making it very clear that he has been aware and of course updated on the situation, the blackout situation the last 72 hours, and that he has spoken with Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien yesterday.
Both of the leaders talking about the impact, the effect of the blackout on the populations, talking about the need to work together to modernize this power grid system, that both countries share, as well as a new task force that is being developed that will be headed by the top energy officials of both countries.
The bottom line is they are trying to find out why this happened and to prevent it from happening in the future.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's going to take a while, I think but we will find out what caused the blackout, and we will deal with it. I view it as a wake up call. You know, I have been concerned that our infrastructure, the delivery system is old and antiquated, and I think this is an indication of the fact that we need to modernize the electricity grid. So it's a good opportunity for us to analyze what went wrong and deal with it. We don't know, yet, what went wrong, but we will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now, Christy, as you know, this issue has become very political over the last 24-48 hours, President Bush calling on congress to pass his comprehensive energy bill, saying that they do have some provisions within that bill that would call for modernizing that grid, but Democrats, particularly Congressman Dick Gephardt saying that legislation would not be helpful but rather counter- productive in that effort. As you can imagine, President Bush as well as the energy secretary, both of them, calling on congress to make this a top priority when they return from their recess.
PAUL: And most likely they are probably going to use this specific incident to back up their claims of what needs to be done to push Democrats to move forward with it, correct?
MALVEAUX: Well, absolutely. Both sides are really using this. The Democrats are pointing to the Republicans. The Republicans now pointing to the Democrats on aim of this, who to blame, whose fault it is. Obviously both sides want to get to the bottom of this, and the president, of course, saying that this is something that he saw coming, but also Clinton administration officials say that they have been complaining about this for years as well.
PAUL: All right, Suzanne Malveaux we appreciate it. Suzanne thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 16, 2003 - 14:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTY PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Well President Bush is calling on congress to send him an energy bill to fix some of the problems behind the blackout. That angle on the story from White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux at the Presidents ranch in Texas. Good Saturday to you, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well hi Christy. President Bush is back at the Crawford ranch after two days in California, that is where he did some fund raising. Also he highlighted his environmental policies. This is something the president talked about today in weekly radio address, but the president also making it very clear that he has been aware and of course updated on the situation, the blackout situation the last 72 hours, and that he has spoken with Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien yesterday.
Both of the leaders talking about the impact, the effect of the blackout on the populations, talking about the need to work together to modernize this power grid system, that both countries share, as well as a new task force that is being developed that will be headed by the top energy officials of both countries.
The bottom line is they are trying to find out why this happened and to prevent it from happening in the future.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's going to take a while, I think but we will find out what caused the blackout, and we will deal with it. I view it as a wake up call. You know, I have been concerned that our infrastructure, the delivery system is old and antiquated, and I think this is an indication of the fact that we need to modernize the electricity grid. So it's a good opportunity for us to analyze what went wrong and deal with it. We don't know, yet, what went wrong, but we will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now, Christy, as you know, this issue has become very political over the last 24-48 hours, President Bush calling on congress to pass his comprehensive energy bill, saying that they do have some provisions within that bill that would call for modernizing that grid, but Democrats, particularly Congressman Dick Gephardt saying that legislation would not be helpful but rather counter- productive in that effort. As you can imagine, President Bush as well as the energy secretary, both of them, calling on congress to make this a top priority when they return from their recess.
PAUL: And most likely they are probably going to use this specific incident to back up their claims of what needs to be done to push Democrats to move forward with it, correct?
MALVEAUX: Well, absolutely. Both sides are really using this. The Democrats are pointing to the Republicans. The Republicans now pointing to the Democrats on aim of this, who to blame, whose fault it is. Obviously both sides want to get to the bottom of this, and the president, of course, saying that this is something that he saw coming, but also Clinton administration officials say that they have been complaining about this for years as well.
PAUL: All right, Suzanne Malveaux we appreciate it. Suzanne thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
