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Skriven 2006-10-12 23:31:08 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0610123) for Thu, 2006 Oct 12
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Press Gaggle by Dana Perino and Senior Administration Officials
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 12, 2006

Press Gaggle by Dana Perino and Senior Administration Officials
Aboard Air Force One
En Route St. Louis, Missouri



PARTICIPANTS
Jim Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental
Quality
J.D. Crouch, Deputy National Security Advisor


11:36 A.M. EDT

MS. PERINO: Good morning. We are on our way to St. Louis, Missouri, and
then we're going to go to Chicago. So we are leaving sunshine and headed
into the snow. So that's your weather forecast. Let me tell you that the
President this morning had his normal briefings. He had a call to Prime
Minister Howard of Australia. That call was read out this morning. Did
everyone get that, or would you like me to repeat it here?

He will -- the President will give the keynote address at the renewable
energy conference. This is a joint conference sponsored by Department of
Energy and the United States Department of Agriculture, so Secretaries
Bodman and Johanns. The title of the conference is the 2006 Advancing
Renewable Energy conference. We expect approximately 1,400 attendees.

And then at 5:20 p.m., after we get to Chicago, the President will make
remarks at Roskam for Congress, David McSweeney for Congress 2006, and an
Illinois Congressional Victory Committee. And then we -- the President will
arrive back at the White House at 9:40 p.m.

I want to let you know that I brought -- I brought Jim Connaughton back.
He's the President's -- Assistant to the President and the Chairman of the
White House Council on Environmental Quality.

There was also a meeting today that I'm trying to get a little bit more
information on. I'm going to come back at the end of the flight with a
little bit more. State Councilor Tang of China visited the White House
today. President Hu informed the President on Monday in their phone call
that President Tang was going to be in town -- I'm sorry, that State
Councilor Tang was going to be in town. And the Councilor met with
Secretary Rice and Hadley before going to the Oval Office to meet with the
President. J.D. Crouch is on the flight. I'm going to be getting some more
information from him, and then I'll come back and try to give you some more
on that.

Right now, let me give Jim Connaughton a chance to give you a quick rundown
on the events for this morning, and then I'll take other questions before I
come back later.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Good morning, everybody. I'm Jim Connaughton, the
Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and I advise
the President on energy and environment/natural resource issues.

Today's conference is being hosted by the Department of Agriculture,
Secretary Johanns, and the Department of Energy, Sam Bodman, but it will
also include speeches by EPA Administrator Steve Johnson, and a significant
number of administration officials, that are focused on the implementation
of the President's Advanced Energy Initiative, which includes a very strong
emphasis on renewable energy technologies, both in terms of how we power
transportation systems, as well as how we power homes, businesses and
offices.

Today's speech will be very technology focused. There are many other policy
arenas in this subject area, but this will be very focused on the
technologies. Now the agency leaders are putting an emphasis on the promise
for even more vibrant rural economies through the instillation of the
facilities and the development of the technologies that allow us to reduce
our reliance on foreign sources of energy, especially oil, and allow us to
create more diversified opportunities for different fuel sources, for
different kinds of vehicles, as well as for vehicles and fuels that don't
involve gasoline or petroleum-type products at all.

So we will be talking about -- the President will be talking today about
where we are going with hybrids, where we are going with a new generation
of clean diesels -- which has been enabled by the fact that starting this
weekend, all diesel fuel in America will have cut its sulphur dioxide by
more than 95 percent. That will enable a new breed of diesel engines that
will be more than 90 percent reduced in nitrogen oxide, and create a
platform for diesels in passenger cars and in light trucks like pickup
trucks that we haven't seen before, and will promote significant fuel
efficiency.

Now with hybrids and clean diesels, we then can look to plug-in hybrids --
just to give you an example on plug-in hybrids, I drove one last week, one
of the few prototypes that's out there in the United States today. It got
156 miles per gallon -- and the opportunity to take our advances in hybrids
and move to move to plug-ins is a huge opportunity. All of these
technologies will enable a switch to renewable fuels, initially ethanol,
increasingly biodiesel, and then ultimately, consistent with the
President's State of the Union initiative, cellulosic ethanol, that can be
made from a wide variety of plant materials and plant waste materials.

As of today, since the President took office, we've increased the nation's
consumption of ethanol three times, and we've seen biodiesel go from almost
no production to nearly a billion gallons of production. And then, of
course, the President has spoken often over the last five years about
hydrogen, and we are well, well along in the $1.2 billion initiative to
produce hydrogen fuel.

On powering our homes, businesses and offices, the President, over the
course of the last several years, has placed a strong emphasis on the need
for efficiency and conservation. Today's remarks will focus on the
technologies that makes greater efficiency conservation and more effective
use of energy possible.

One area of high importance, of course, is solar and wind. In America,
since the President took office, we have tripled our production of wind
energy. And in fact, this year, the nation -- the United States has
installed more wind than any other country, more wind power.

We also have a solar initiative as part of the Advanced Energy Initiative,
which is trying to dramatically cut the cost of solar.

Now, with in some of the bigger base-load technologies, the President will
be discussing nuclear and the new global nuclear energy partnership which
seeks to create an international effort to reduce the -- to recycle more
nuclear material, spent nuclear fuel, so we reduce dramatically the amount
of waste that needs to handled and to do so in partnership with countries
that responsibly produce nuclear power and responsibly manage the waste,
and responsibly avoid proliferation issues.

In addition, the President will talk about clean coal. The first step to
clean coal is more efficient coal; the second step is to cut the pollution
from coal, which we'll be doing by nearly 70 percent, which will result in
a nearly $50 billion investment in new clean coal technologies at our power
plants. And then the significant new funding in the President's Advanced
Energy Initiative to take us to zero-emission coal.

This is all part of a bigger picture of international engagement. The last
two G8s have focused very specifically on energy security and the related
issues of cutting air pollution and greenhouse gases associated with
climate change. And we will expect that conversation to carry forward at
this upcoming G8 hosted by Germany. As part of that, there's a strong
international engagement on renewable fuels.

The U.K., for example, has gone from nearly no renewable fuels and
substantially increased their current use of renewable fuels and have a
strong new mandate for renewable fuels. And then we have international
efforts underway, for example, on how to capture methane from agricultural
operations and from landfills to produce clean-burning energy at a
significant profit.

This also takes form in a significant set of energy initiatives in the Asia
Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which includes China,
India, Australia, South Korea and Japan.

MS. PERINO: Any questions for Jim?

Q Is there anything new, any new announcements or new programs in the
speech today that the President hasn't talked about before?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Today the President will be highlighting the
remarkable progress we've made since we've been implementing the Energy
Policy Act of 2005 that he signed last year, as well as the recent
milestones related to his Advanced Energy Initiative. So you'll be getting
a very significant progress report on how far we've come, and then where
we're heading.

MS. PERINO: Great. Any other questions for me?

Q Are you coming back to gaggle again, or --

MS. PERINO: I'm going to try to get some more information about the meeting
that I mentioned, with State Councilor Tang, so I can get a readout about
how that meeting went. Obviously, the President wanted to meet with this
gentleman because of the ongoing discussions with our partners in the
six-party talks, and since he was in town -- I just need to get an update
from them and then I'll try to come back on that.

Q Did he call Howard or did Howard call him this morning -- Prime Minister
Howard?

MS. PERINO: The phone call was scheduled for 7:30 a.m. I don't know who
placed the call. If I can get that for you, I'll come back. Okay, we'll be
back.

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DR. CROUCH: What I thought I would do is give you a little background today
on the meeting that occurred. We had Chinese State Councilor Tang here. He
had a meeting with the Secretary of State and the National Secretary
Advisor, and then followed by a meeting with the President in the Oval
Office. I think this was a good example of the high level of consultations
that exist between the U.S. and China on the North Korean issue.

President Bush had spoken with President Hu of China, as you know, earlier,
and President Hu had said that he would be dispatching State Councilor Tang
to come and brief on Chinese thinking on the North Korean situation.

So it was a good set of meetings, we exchanged views. I think we've got a
very positive way forward. Everybody agrees that we have to deal with the
-- this North Korean nuclear test, we have to have a resolution in New York
and that we're going to have to take some strong measures to convince the
North Koreans that the true path for their future really is to get back to
discussions, to implement the September 2004 joint statement and to
denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. So there was a broad set of agreement. I
think that agreement is shared not only with our friends in China, but
also, of course, with our allies in Japan, with similar statements that
have been made both by Prime Minister Abe and, of course, by President Roh
of the Republic of Korea.

So there's a strong basis now, I think, for moving forward in New York.
And, obviously, the President has, through the Secretary of State, has
instructed Ambassador Bolton to move forward with a resolution in New York.

Q Did the Chinese State Councilor -- did Mr. Tang specifically say that
China would go along with measures as strong as the United States would
like to see in that U.N. resolution?

DR. CROUCH: We're still discussing the details of what would be in a
resolution. I think what's important -- and there was not a detailed
discussion of the contents of that. That is obviously something that's
going to be left for negotiation up in New York. But I do think that the
Chinese came with a message that they agree that there had to be some
strong measures that were taken to convince the North Koreans to get back
on a positive negotiating track.

Q Can you tell us some specific things that were talked about? And can you
tell us whether the President asked the State Councilor for China to do
anything specifically?

DR. CROUCH: Obviously, there was a broad-ranging discussion not only about
action up in New York, but about how we would work together to try to bring
about a diplomatic resolution of this issue. And in particular, I think
there was a strong emphasis both from the Chinese side and the U.S. side
that we needed to find a way to get the North Koreans to implement their
commitments under the September 2004 agreement to de-nuclearize the Korean
Peninsula.

So there was -- there was discussion, obviously, not only about the
resolution, which is one element of that, but what -- there might be
diplomatic approaches that are made to do that and to make sure that we
stayed in close coordination of our policies because it was really -- I
think there is a general view that working among the five parties together
we would be in a position to put maximum influence on North Korea to move
in that direction.

So basically that was the main message. It was at a pretty general level,
but they did -- I know that there is expectation that the details for the
resolution, I think, will be worked out. The Secretary of State will
obviously be talking to Ambassador Bolton and giving him some instructions.

Q Our reports out of China this morning said that the Chinese seem to be
backing away from a travel ban and financial sanctions. Did they make that
clear in that meeting? Did that come up?

DR. CROUCH: There wasn't a detailed discussion of specific elements of the
resolution. As I said, there was a broad understanding that there needed to
be strong response. And I think that the details of those are going to have
to be negotiated -- obviously, negotiated out not only between the United
States and China but among all the members of the Security Council.

Q But the problem is that your definition of strong measures and the
Chinese definition of strong measures don't necessarily coincide. So when
you say that they agreed that strong measures were needed, what exactly
does that mean?

DR. CROUCH: I'm saying that at this point those things have to be
negotiated out. I think it's a positive sign that we all agree that we need
a resolution and that we need to have -- to go forward with strong
measures.

Now, obviously, the details of that, there's possibility for differences.
But those things are the kinds of things that get worked out in the context
of those negotiations. But I think it's a very major step and a positive
step that we now have all the major players in this arguing, in fact, for a
strong resolution.

Q The meeting -- sorry, how long was the meeting?

DR. CROUCH: I think the meeting -- I want to say the meeting with the
President was about 15 minutes, and I think the meeting with the Secretary
of State and the National Security Advisor was probably about half an hour.
That's right our negotiator Chris Hill was there, as well.

Q This gentleman was named as a special envoy, is that correct?

DR. CROUCH: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.

Q He was named as a special envoy, right? Tang?

DR. CROUCH: Tang -- his title is State Councilor, which my understanding in
their system is a very senior -- it's a super Cabinet position.

Q Sounds like an envoy.

DR. CROUCH: It's Councilor with a C. And it's a very high ranking position.

Q You have a good historical sense of the Clinton administration and the
bilateral agreement in 1994. Can you just talk for a minute about why that
didn't work, and why this is different right now, what President Clinton is
doing -- I mean, President Bush is doing, and how we can move this forward
with the six-party talks?

DR. CROUCH: Well, if you go back to the 1990s, it's important to remember
that throughout the '90s we judged that there was a nuclear weapons program
that they had developed, I believe back when he was CIA Director in the
last administration, CIA Director Tenet briefed that we believed they had
material for one to two nuclear weapons, we believed they had an ongoing
weapons program. And so that was really the genesis of the concern about
this.

If you look at sort of the history of that, basically the Clinton
administration entered into a set of largely bilateral discussions which
ended with the -- something called the "Agreed Framework." The Agreed
Framework did not eliminate those weapons, it did not eliminate the -- for
example, the spent fuel that had been taken out of the Yongbyon reactor,
but it essentially was a freeze in place of that, and a commitment by the
North Koreans that if the international community -- when the international
community provided heavy fuel oil and the construction of two very large
light water reactors, that they would allow, then, the IAEA to come back in
and they would allow -- they would come back into compliance with the NPT.

So it's important to understand that throughout this entire period,
effectively, the North Koreans are outside compliance of the NPT, and
outside compliance of the IAEA safeguards agreement, all right? So this
agreement was put in place. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think the
international community, including the United States, spent over a billion
dollars, maybe even over $2 billion implementing this agreement, including
provisions of heavy fuel oil and the beginning of construction of light
water reactors, two 1,000 megawatt light water reactors in North Korea.

There were already some indications that -- by the end of the '90s that
they weren't living up to this agreement. There was diversions of fuel oil
and there were some other aspects of this. And you'll remember that when
the Bush administration first came in, the Agreed Framework was in place,
it was moving forward. And I believe it was sometime in 2002 that some very
powerful evidence emerged -- or crystallized, is a better way -- that they
had been pursuing a uranium enrichment program, separate from the plutonium
path to the bomb that the Agreed Framework had focused on.

Now, that uranium enrichment program was not only a violation of the Agreed
Framework, it was also a violation of the North-South Denuclearization
Agreement, the IAEA Safeguards Agreement, and the Nonproliferation Treaty.
And it was at that time that the administration moved away from
implementation of the Agreed Framework because we had clear evidence that
the North Koreans were not honoring that agreement; in fact, were not even
honoring the central commitment of that agreement, which was to give up
their nuclear weapons program.

The other thing that's important to remember is that during the 1990s there
was a real effort to develop an approach that was bilaterally focused. And
when we looked at this issue, we thought that the most -- first of all, it
was an international issue; it was not something that was really an issue
between the United States and North Korea, it had a broad impact in the
region. It affected our allies' security -- Japan, the Republic of Korea,
and obviously, would have an impact on China. And so we thought it was very
important to multilateralize these discussions on a substantive level.

On a leverage level, if you look at who were the countries that had the
most leverage on North Korea, obviously it was a combination of the
international community, the force of the U.N., but also in particular, the
close relationships with the Republic of Korea and China. So it was
important to make sure that they were brought into the process. And I think
the success so far has been our ability to bring all these parties together
to get them focused on a common set of objectives and to now,
unfortunately, after this alleged -- potential test, to get them to put
pressure on the North Koreans to fulfill their commitments.

I think it's a different approach. And if you think about the '90s, a great
deal of effort was spent -- the Secretary of State, during the '90s, went
to Pyongyang and had a series of meetings. I think she met with Kim
Jong-il. There was a lot of bilateral effort, there was a lot of effort to
try to provide energy capabilities for the North Koreans. And that effort
really didn't work, because by the late '90s and certainly by the discovery
of this uranium enrichment program, it was pretty clear that the North
Koreans were continuing to develop nuclear weapons and a nuclear
capability.

Q Thank you very much.

END 12:41 P.M. EDT

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