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American Morning

Gallup Poll: Americans See New Production, Conservation As Ways Out of Energy Crisis

Aired May 15, 2001 - 11:29   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The nation's energy crunch is front and center at an important news conference in Washington today.

Let's get details now from our Jeanne Meserve.

Jeanne, hello.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Daryn, hi.

The press conference held by the North American Electric Reliability Council -- or NAERC, a group of power industry experts -- issued its forecast for the summer power season, and it doesn't look good for some parts of the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM GALLAGHER, NAERC: We do expect to see rotating blackouts in California throughout the summer. We expect tight capacity conditions in the Pacific Northwest, New England, and New York City, and we do expect to see a continued heavy loadings on the transmission system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: And now let's get down to some specifics with Kathleen Koch, who's been following this story for us.

How bad is it going to get in California?

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jeanne, NAERC is forecasting that California can expect about 260 hours of rotating blackouts over the summer. That averages out to about 15 hours a week, and they're saying that's about 10 percent of the summer hours.

NAERC says that there's not much California can do about it. In the past, it was able to borrow some power from the Pacific Northwest, but the Pacific Northwest is in perhaps one of the deepest droughts ever experienced, so they do not have any extra hydroelectric power to loan to California. It's going to pretty tough.

MESERVE: Does the Northwest have enough powers for its own needs?

KOCH: NAERC says that, for now, the Northwest is the doing fine. But they say that if you look down the road toward the winter, if we don't get some rain soon this summer, or, say, some heavy snowfalls in the fall -- which really doesn't happen that often in the Northwest -- that come the winter, the Pacific Northwest could see some actual blackouts and power interruptions.

MESERVE: New York City -- what is the situation there?

KOCH: New York City in the past had been doing pretty well, but they've got some real concerns right now. There is new generating capacity that NAERC says is supposed to come on line, these 11 combustion turbines. But there is a lot of local opposition to these turbines. They're under construction. There's one old one that they're trying to bring back on line. NAERC says that if all of those don't get on line for the summer -- and say we have a long and very hot summer -- New York City could be in trouble.

MESERVE: They also mentioned New England in that quick sound byte. What's the situation there?

KOCH: New England in the past had been an area of concern, but they have gotten their act together. They have built new generating capacity. They've also signed an agreement with Quebec to borrow some energy from them if they get into dire straits. So that may be New York City's saving grace, that they may be able actually to borrow some energy from the New England area if things get difficult.

MESERVE: Kathleen, did anybody see this coming?

KOCH: Jeanne, if anyone remembers -- and not many people paid attention to it -- last summer, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson was barnstorming around the country saying that an energy crisis is down the road. We weren't there yet, but the possibility of these rolling blackout and brownouts was coming. People said he sounded like Chicken Little. Problems didn't materialize, and everyone essentially took their eye off the ball.

Now it's happening. And they say it's in part because of deregulation, the increased competition, and the fact that power companies haven't been willing to invest in infrastructure improvement -- power transmission lines, power plants. It show the NIMBY factor, Not In My Back Yard: People do not want to see these built in their neighborhoods. Of course, our demand goes up; we've got those energy- guzzling appliances and computers, and we want that energy. But it has to come from somewhere.

MESERVE: Kathleen Koch, thanks so much.

Daryn, there is a hearing up on the Hill this afternoon, talking about the impact of high energy prices on consumers. We'll be taking a look at that later.

Now back to you.

KAGAN: I look forward to that. Thank you, Jeanne.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: As we've been doing for the past several days, let's check now on what the American people are saying about this energy crunch.

Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport joins us now with that.

Good morning -- Frank.

FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GALLUP POLL: Good morning, Leon.

What the public is saying is they, in essence, want it all. There's the "C" word, conservation, and then the "P" word, production. I think we're going to hear both from Bush when he gives his speech on Thursday about energy. That's what the public wants.

Here's a trade-off question that we've asked in March and just reasked it very recently, late last week: Would you prefer an emphasis on conservation? And that's that yellow line, on top; or the red line, which means "on production"; or as the bottom line has it, on both. It's been conservation out front both times: 56 percent wanted conservation, in March, and last week, 47 percent wanted conservation as well. But notice that the percent who say "both" is coming up.

Our interpretation is that the public says, yes, we do want conservation. New instances of production is OK, but we've got to have efforts at conservation in the energy plan.

A big difference is by politics. Look at this: This is where we split out Republicans from Democrats nationally. Even the Republicans on the left here -- the administration's current party -- prefers more of an emphasis on production, but it's not overwhelming. Then if you look on the right side, for Democrats, you see that, overwhelmingly, rank-and-file Democrats across the country say conserve first, before we keep talking about all that production.

Leon, let's look at a few specifics here. Here are some ideas that we tested in the public, in terms of conservation. There was overwhelming approval for efficient appliances, buildings, and cars -- 80 percent-plus said yes to that. But something that we tested a month or two ago was about putting actual limits on how much energy a consumer can use, and that's where Americans say they don't want to go so far. Only 35 percent approve that.

What about some of these issues that we're going to hear from in the Bush plan on production? Yes to solar and wind. Yes even to the new power plants. Yes to drilling on federal land, by 63 percent. The two things the public's more negative to are nuclear power -- less than half favor that -- and drilling up in the Arctic -- that's always gotten a negative response -- just 38 percent say they approve that.

Our bottom line, Leon and Daryn, is that Americans say new production emphasis is OK, but you've got to have conservation in any plan that can come up.

Back to you -- Leon.

HARRIS: Thanks, Frank, we appreciate that -- Frank Newport.

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