Washington Post coverage of yesterday's speech

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/26/AR2006062601241.html


Kerry Calls for 'Energy Independence'
Plan Mandates Cuts In Oil Consumption

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; Page A03

Decrying political timidity in Washington and denouncing the Bush administration as anti-science and pro-Big Oil, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday outlined a program to combat climate change and move the United States toward energy independence, including mandates to cut consumption of foreign oil.

Kerry decried more than two decades of government inaction to lessen dependence on Middle East oil. Both parties share blame, he said in a speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall, calling the country's lack of progress toward energy independence "politics at its worst -- ducking the difficult choices, giving in to the big contributors, substituting words for deeds, postponing the reckoning until the day after tomorrow."

But Kerry saved his harshest words for President Bush, whom he portrayed as unwilling to push the public or special interests to change long-formed habits that have made the United States the biggest energy consumer in the world.

"George W. Bush now says that 'America is addicted to oil,' " Kerry said. "His preferred policy has been to feed the addiction; his attitude on greenhouse gases is to let them increase; his energy alternatives are token; again and again his approach to crisis is to denigrate the environment."