Bush Calls for Accelerating LNG Review

President George W. Bush got a lot of press this week by adding two points to his standard energy speech, proposing to use closed military bases as sites for new oil refineries and expanding his long-standing call for consumer tax credits on fuel-efficient hybrid cars to include clean diesel vehicles. He also pushed to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sole jurisdiction over the siting of liquefied natural gas projects. In a speech to the National Small Business Conference April 27, the president again said there are no short-term fixes and called on Congress to give him an energy bill by this summer. He joined the battle between federal energy regulators and several coastal states, including California, supporting provisions in the House-passed energy bill that give the federal government final say on where LNG gas facilities are built. ?Our ability to expand our use of liquefied natural gas is limited because today we have just five receiving terminals and storage facilities around the United States. Federal agencies must expedite the review of the 32 proposed new projects that will either expand or build new LNG terminals. There are projects on the books, and we?re going to get after the review process,? Bush said. The president also called on Congress to provide a ?risk insurance? plan to insulate the nuclear industry against regulatory delays if they build new nuclear power plants. Although there has not been a new commercial nuclear power plant ordered in the United States since 1973, some utilities have expressed interest in building new reactors, perhaps as early as 2010, but they want assurance of a smooth regulatory process to ensure financing. Bush also extended his call for regulatory changes to refineries, calling for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to simplify rules and regulations to encourage further expansion of existing refineries. ?By easing the regulatory burden, we can refine more gasoline . . . here at home,? he said.

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Bush Calls for Accelerating LNG Review

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