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Skriven 2007-06-21 23:30:44 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0706215) for Thu, 2007 Jun 21
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Press Gaggle by Dana Perino
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary June 21, 2007

Press Gaggle by Dana Perino Aboard Air Force One En Route Huntsville,
Alabama

˙˙Press Briefings


12:47 P.M. EDT

MS. PERINO: Good morning. We are on our way to Alabama. On board Secretary
Sam Bodman, the President's Secretary of Energy; also three members of
Congress -- Senator Sessions, Representative Jo Bonner of Mobile, Alabama,
and Representative Bud Cramer of Huntsville, Alabama.

I'm going to through the President's schedule, and then I'm going to come
back to something -- to give you more detail about something he did this
morning. But if I don't go through the rest, we won't get to the -- so he
had his normal briefings. He had a SVTS at 7:15 a.m. with Prime Minister
Tony Blair. At 10:30 a.m. he had a policy time on energy, on the energy
bill that's being debated in Congress now, as well as a preview of his trip
again today, not just about the plant he's going to visit, the nuclear
power plant he's going to visit, but about the nuclear industry as a whole,
and got an update there. As you know, he is supportive of more nuclear
power in the United States.

At 1:05 p.m. he will have a tour of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. He's
going to tour the machine shop and the control room. The Browns Ferry
Nuclear Plant was TVA's first power plant, and it was the largest in the
world when it first opened in 1974.* At 1:40 p.m. he'll make remarks there,
on energy initiatives. Bill Sansom, he's chairman of the TVA Board of
Directors, he will introduce the President. Approximately 225 Browns Ferry
and TVA employees, along with local officials, will attend.

Then at 5:05 p.m. the President will make remarks at Friends of Jeff
Sessions Senate Committee Reception. He arrives back at the White House at
9:40 p.m. tonight.

I have one personnel announcement. We are pleased to announce the
President's decision to name John Emling to serve as Deputy Assistant to
the President for Legislative Affairs. He currently serves as a Special
Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. He will be working for
Candi Wolff, serving -- he's worked for us -- with us for, I think, about a
year in the special assistant position. He'll be moving up to deputy in
order to handle the Senate for Candi. He also worked at the legislative
affairs shop at the Treasury Department, and he was a policy analyst at the
Senate Republican Policy Committee. So we welcome him -- we congratulate
him on that promotion.

Back to the SVTS with Tony Blair. The President and Prime Minister Blair
signed a treaty this morning. It's called the U.S.-U.K. Defense Trade
Cooperation Treaty. It would improve transatlantic defense cooperation and
counterterrorism efforts by alleviating barriers to trade in defense goods,
services, and information between the two countries, including our defense
industries. We are going to present this treaty to the Senate for their
advice and consent.

The reasons we've undertaken this treaty with the U.K.: As you know, it's
our closest ally and our biggest defense trade partner, for several
reasons. It's in our national security interest to support joint U.S.-U.K.
military and counterterrorism operations in a timely way, and to speed
U.S.-U.K. research and development and production of the next generation of
interoperable defense technologies. It's also in our homeland security
interests. We're going to be collaborating with the United Kingdom to
develop the most effective countermeasures possible to combat terrorist
attacks at home and against our partners in the war on terror, and we also
believe it is in our security and economic interests to save money by
leveraging each other's experience and by reducing duplication of efforts
on some of the research and development that's been going on.

I think with that, I will go to questions.

Q Can you do any of that in English?

MS. PERINO: That wasn't in English? I totally understood it.

Q Why do we need it? Don't we have open ties with the U.K. -- are you
talking about the treaty?

Q Yes.

Q Why do we need that?

MS. PERINO: As I understand it, the goal was to deepen the ties that we
have with the United Kingdom, not only in traditional battlefield
situations, but also against the global threat of terrorism, including when
our forces face the new threats, such as IEDs. There is a -- the legal
agreement that was signed, the actual treaty, we're going to release that,
as well. So if what I'm giving you is not in English, that maybe will be.
Or if it's in legalese, then your legal experts can help explain it.

Q Dana, did the President urge Tony Blair to become the envoy to the Middle
East?

MS. PERINO: I anticipated that question. And what I told you yesterday was
that I couldn't comment on their private conversations regarding what Prime
Minister Blair may or may not do following his Prime Ministership, which
ends next Wednesday. But I just don't have anything more to give you right
now.

Q Would he like Tony Blair to do it?

Q -- taking it away from the conversation between them, does the President
support the idea of Blair becoming the envoy?

MS. PERINO: It's just not something that I can comment on. They obviously
speak frequently. We don't always read out when they speak, of course,
because they talk regularly and frequently. This Secure Video
Telecommunications Conference that happened this morning, it's not unusual
for them to talk. I'm just not at liberty to say beyond talking about the
treaty what was discussed on the SVTS.

Q But you're not saying that other things were not discussed.

MS. PERINO: Correct.

Q Was there an urgency to get the treaty done before the Prime Minister
leaves office?

MS. PERINO: I think there was a goal to get it done. I think they were
working towards getting it done before he left office.

Q Did they sign it while they were talking to each other? Is that the way
they did it?

MS. PERINO: I believe so, yes. I'll see if there's a photo we can release.

Q Do you have any reaction to the Doha trade talks breaking down?

MS. PERINO: Yes, I know that Sue Schwab has made some comments. Obviously,
we are -- the President would be disappointed if there were countries that
were trying to block a successful discussion. Sue Schwab has been there
working very hard in Potsdam, Germany, with the G4 -- wait here one second.

You all know the President's position very well, which is he believes trade
is good not only for our nation but especially for developing nations and
the poorer nations. That's what the Doha Round is all about.

The President is going to continue to pursue multilateral and bilateral
trade deals as long as he's President. Sue Schwab said that she is going to
continue to work on the Doha Round and she was going to be speaking to Lamy
soon, but I think that we would express disappointment in the discussions
in Potsdam.

Q Is the U.S. willing to give up farm subsidies to --

MS. PERINO: We have demonstrated considerable flexibility in these
discussions and we are willing to reduce and change our farm subsidies. And
I think that whereas we were willing to make some changes, it wasn't going
to be reciprocated. And in order to have a good trade deal, you need to
have free trade. And so while this discussion didn't go well, we are going
to continue to try to push it and find another way to try to get it done.

Q Dana, back on the treaty, do you foresee any reason why the Senate
wouldn't, you know, approve this? Is there any -- are there any obstacles?

MS. PERINO: Not that I heard of, no. Obviously, we will need to consult
with the Senate and see what they say, but I don't think so.

Q How long were they negotiating this treaty?

MS. PERINO: I'll see if I can find out. Obviously, something like this
doesn't come around about -- in the last couple of weeks, but I'll see if I
can find out.

Q Do you have any indication of problems in the Senate with it?

MS. PERINO: That's what she was just asking me, and not that I'm aware of,
no.

Q Does the Senate have to approve it, or is this just advise and consent?

MS. PERINO: They do.

Q They do? Okay.

MS. PERINO: They do have to approve it, right?

Q Advise and consent is approval.

MS. PERINO: Yes.

Q Is the President talking to Senator Sessions about the immigration bill
during their -- on board?

MS. PERINO: They are friends and they are colleagues and they are elected
leaders, representing the American people. And, of course, as you know, the
President went there last Tuesday to talk to the Senate about the
immigration bill amongst other issues. And so I'm sure that it could come
up today. I don't know if they've had a personal conversation about it yet.
But Senator Sessions is going to come back with us as well.

Q Can I ask you a question about nuclear? If nuclear power is so great, why
does it need the federal government to subsidize it?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that -- there's lots of nuclear experts back on
the ground that can help you more with that. But my basic understanding is
the following, which is we made a decision in our country decades ago that
we were not going to continue with nuclear power. And I think that was to
our detriment. The President has aggressively tried to turn that around.

Now, back when that decision was made, people were very fearful of nuclear
energy, and other nations decided to move past that and to look for
technologies that would be able to help alleviate those fears. We did not
progress that way in the States and we are having to play a little bit of
catch up right now in order to get to a world where we could use nuclear
power more.

We need to increase the amount of electricity generation in this country, I
think it's by 50 percent in the next 25 years. In order to do that, you
want to do it in a way that is respectful of the environment as well. And
nuclear power is the best bet regarding that. And there are new
technologies that can help you not only deal with the building of the
plants but also the waste that's generated from the plant. It has no
greenhouse gas emissions. It is a great and efficient way to be able to
provide electricity.

The government in some cases needs to help kick start some things. One of
the things the government can do as well is help on the siting issues. It's
expensive to build a plant, it's expensive to invest in one. And in order
to get through the process or the NEPA process, the National Environmental
Policy Act process, it's cumbersome and it takes a lot of time. And if a
company goes through that whole process and at the end of that doesn't get
the approval in order to build the plant, there's huge disincentives then
to try to invest. So if the government can help nudge that along the way,
that's a good thing.

Another thing that Secretary Bodman is leading is working on a
standardization of plant design on three or four different types of plants,
so once those are approved, it would be easier and streamline the process
to get them up and running.

Q Is the President worried at all about using today as kind of a poster
child, a plant that's had two shutdowns in a month?

MS. PERINO: I think this is a plant that was shut down -- shuttered for
many decades. You can talk to the plant about their specifics. But as I
understand it from the experts we talked to this morning, it's not unusual
for a plant that had been shuttered to, upon restarting, have a stumble.
But I think what's important is that the plant did what it was supposed to
do. There was an issue that required it to be shut down. They shut it down
immediately. It was only for three days. And it's back up and running. It's
a great statistic about how much electricity it produces for a house -- let
me see if I've got it. Let's see.

Each unit down here generates enough power for 650,000 homes. So I think
that the plant is -- the people that are benefitting from having this
nuclear power are welcoming of the decision to reopen these plants. As I
said, it was the first one that TVA ever built back in the '70s.

Q Just on another topic?

MS. PERINO: Yes.

Q This is from the House Oversight Committee, this is Waxman's people. The
committee says it has learned that over the objections of the National
Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the Presidential
order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding
classified national security information. The Vice President asserts his
office is not "an entity within the Executive Branch."

Is that right? Is his office not an entity within the Executive Branch?

MS. PERINO: John, as much as I'd love to be able to provide you an answer
here, I think you've given me something that I haven't seen yet, and I'm
going to go back and I'll check it out.

Q Thank you.

END 1:01 P.M. EDT

* Browns Ferry was TVA's first nuclear plant, and the largest nuclear plant
in the world when it opened.

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