In debate preview, candidates outline competing energy policies

By Ian Christopher McCaleb/CNN

CHEVY CHASE, Maryland (CNN) -- In their final public appearances Friday before cloistering themselves to prepare for Tuesday's presidential debate, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore denounced each other's short and long-term energy policies, with each painting wildly differing pictures of a future fraught with danger if the wrong regimen is implemented.

Speaking Friday morning in Saginaw, Michigan, GOP nominee Bush shredded Gore's long-held stance on environmental preservation, saying Gore would rather leave vast stores of domestic oil and natural gas untouched at the nation's economic peril, and outlining a detailed list of solutions to the crunch felt by consumers as oil prices remain elevated.

Gore, responding a short time later during a speech at the Audubon Naturalist Society in the Washington suburbs, responded that Bush was exploiting the high cost of oil to open up one of the most coveted pieces of federally controlled land to oil exploration and extraction: Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

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Both were trying to gain ground as national attention was trained on the high costs of gasoline, home heating oil and natural gas, with little relief in sight and great amid concerns that those costs could hold into the winter months.

Friday's exchange between the two served to provide the first hints as to what next Tuesday's debate in Boston may look like. Both candidates strayed from their regular lines of recent attack -- Bush has concentrated on education and Gore on Medicare -- to address the same pressing need within just minutes of each other.

And, each sought to put their backgrounds and expertise to work. Bush -- who has been relentlessly castigated by the Democrats for his oil executive background and his continuing ties to the industry -- used that business knowledge to his advantage Friday, as he presented stark numbers covering the nation's energy demands and consumption.

Gore, whose staff had time to absorb the Bush speech before the vice president took to the podium, battled back by citing his own work to encourage the growth of the alternative energy industry.

Bush: Energy and environment can 'coexist'

The Texas governor, in perhaps his strongest showing since his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, accused the Clinton administration of snoozing as a numerous indicators that an energy crisis was on the horizon came and went.

VIDEO Bush outlines his plan, which includes opening protected federal land and getting help from Canada and Mexico: Part 1 Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Watch Part 2 Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   MESSAGE BOARDS Presidential race 2000 Rising oil prices   Related stories: World's oil supply: How long can we count on it? (09-28-00) Controlling Oil Prices (09-25-00) Clinton announces $400 million heating oil relief program (09-23-00)

"After seven and a half years in office, and four months before departing, Mister Clinton and Mister Gore have begun to grasp a problem that has been years in the making," Bush said. "The administration seems to want to take credit for the economy, but seems to have forgotten what makes it run."

"As the secretary of energy himself said recently ... the Clinton-Gore administration was 'caught napping' when fuel prices began to rise," Bush said. "This is a good description, and it has taken an election to wake them up."

Bush's consumption figures were compelling -- "Since this administration took office," he said, "America's need for oil has increased 14 percent. Imports have increased by more than one-third."

Now, Bush said, 56 percent of the oil consumed in the U.S. is imported, and he predicted that figure could rise. Domestic crude production is down, he added, while refineries are taxed beyond their limits.

Part of the short-term solution, Bush said, would be to open a small section of the Arctic preserve (ANWR) to exploration.

Congressional Republicans, specifically Alaska's three-man, all-GOP delegation in Congress, have clamored for the opening of the refuge to drilling for several years, anticipating vast economic benefits for the state.

Their efforts have been rebuffed amid a series of environmental concerns -- concerns that Bush said were no longer valid.

"We should open a small fraction of ANWR, and explore it in a way that would be environmentally sound," he said. The vice president says he would rather protect this refuge than gain the energy.

Speaking in Saginaw, Michigan, Gov. George W. Bush charges the Democrats with failing to develop a comprehensive energy policy, putting "our economy and the way of life it supports" at risk

"This is a false choice," Bush insisted. "We can do both, taking out the energy and leaving only footprints."

As a tradeoff to environmentalists, Bush said upfront fees paid by oil companies to access the ANWR reserves would be spent on research into alternative energy sources, and royalties generated by ANWR oil sales would be spent on conservation efforts.

"This could provide hundreds of millions of dollars in conservation resources every year," he said.

Gore blasted back a short while later, saying environmental degradation would be impossible to avoid in the remote area. Decades of environmental damage would be the price paid for "months" of oil, he said.

"The hard right choice means not just opening up our environmental treasures for exploitation by oil companies. It means investing in the technologies of the future to give ourselves more options to use less energy and create less pollution," Gore said.

Opening up ANWR, Gore continued, represented bad economic and bad environmental policy.

Bush said he would instruct the Energy Department to identify other federal lands that could be opened to exploration, support construction of new pipelines, expand refining capacity by tearing down "regulatory hurdles," and commit billions to clean coal technology and hydroelectric power.

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully," he said of dam-generated electrical power.

He also leveled an ominous warning at the small states dotting the western shores of the Persian Gulf, many of which were allied coalition members during the 1991 Gulf War and are longtime members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) -- a cartel that has too much influence in world oil markets, he said.

"I would remind our friends in the Persian Gulf that our relationships are not merely commercial, but are strategic. They may own the oil, but America offers its protection," Bush said.

With an unpredictable Iraq and Islamic fundamentalist Iran situated nearby -- both with powerful military machines capable of rolling over the tiny Gulf emirates with little effort -- the statement served as a declaration of international policy intent.

The Gore view

In response to Bush's wide-ranging energy address, Gore characterized the governor's plan as one mired in old politics, and old economic and industrial realities.

The vice president's two-tiered plan to control prices and reduce oil dependence began, he said, with his call for the release of strategic reserves. That call was heeded by President Clinton late last week, to the dismay of Bush and the Republicans.

"We don't have to build our lives around a fuel source that is distant, uncertain and too easily manipulated," says Vice President Al Gore in Chevy Chase, Maryland, calling for the nation to cut its dependence on oil

"We don't have to be weighted down by old energy policies, held back by those who would short-term profit over the long term interests of our economy and our families," Gore said.

While Bush described the tapping of the reserves as an election stunt, Gore said the "swap" would be repaid exponentially.

"Companies that receive oil now from the reserve will return that amount and more to the reserve at a later date," he said. "I was criticized ... But any political heat generated is a lot less important than the heat families will need this winter."

Gore promoted an initiative he introduced this past summer that calls for a long-term retooling of American industry that would lead to cleaner energy plants and lowered consumption brought on by consumer products that use less gasoline or electricity.

"We don't have to accept a future of old engines and old power plants that waste too much energy and cause too much pollution," he said. "We don't have to build our lives around a fuel source that is distant, uncertain and too easily manipulated.

"Let's say to inventors and entrepreneur in the private sector, if you invest in new technologies that clean up the environment, America will invest in you," Gore said, predicting such an initiative could create a $10 trillion world market in the next decade.