Kerry Campaigns With Energy
Sen. John Kerry plans to talk energy Friday, pulling together proposals he's been discussing on the campaign trail into a cohesive energy plan.
Kerry wants to provide direct government incentives to consumers to buy fuel efficient cars, help companies become more fuel efficient, invest more federal money into clean coal and set a goal of using 20 percent renewable energy by the year 2020, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Fuss. The Democratic presidential candidate also proposes new mandatory standards for the power grid to prevent blackouts.
He also wants to establish a $20 billion fund to finance research and development of alternative or renewable fuels such as corn-based ethanol to help reduce American reliance on foreign oil.
The Democratic presidential candidate says one-fifth of the fuels powering U.S. cars and trucks should come from energy sources such as corn and soybeans by 2020.
Kerry on Friday was discussing his plan during a visit to a Missouri family farm near a new Ford Motor Co. plant that will make the first hybrid sport utility vehicle, which runs on a combination of gasoline and electricity.
President Bush was speaking Friday to a convention of minority journalists in Washington, then heading back to the campaign trail in New Hampshire.
For consumers, Kerry's plan to spend $20 billion over a decade to develop more clean-burning fuels and environmental technology would mean incentives, like tax breaks, worth up to $5,000 for the purchase of clean and efficient vehicles. Kerry wants those vehicles to be made in the United States, and would put half of the $20 billion toward helping American manufacturers rebuild their plants to make more efficient vehicles.
Kerry is spending a second day in the Show Me State. Mr. Bush won Missouri by a narrow margin four years ago, making it another of the battleground states all clustered in this central part of the nation. Missouri has voted for the eventual winner in every presidential race but one during the last 100 years.
Kerry Friday night boards his train again for an overnight trip across Kansas to Colorado.
At repeated stops along the way of this coast-to-coast campaign trip, Kerry drew a connection between the development of domestic energy sources and greater national security.
"We're going to make sure we provide real security for our nation because as long as we are a country which God gave only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves to, as long as we have to import 53 percent of our oil from other nations, as long as the Saudis and the Middle Eastern countries have 65 percent of the world's oil reserves, we are always dependent on someone else," he said to a cheering crowd in St. Louis.
Vice President Dick Cheney has blamed rising oil prices on Democratic opposition to Republican energy plans.
If Kerry really wants alternative fuels to succeed, he should help resurrect an energy bill that's stalled in Congress, said Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign.
"He is blocking passage of the energy bill in the U.S. Senate that would decrease America's dependence on foreign oil by allowing for drilling in Alaska and incentivize the production of alternative fuels like hydrogen, solar and wind," he said.
Kerry opposes the bill because it permits drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Another portion of his energy plan would put $10 billion into clean coal technologies.
The president's appearance at Unity: Journalists of Color comes a day after Kerry told the same convention America remains divided along racial lines, but he'll work to bridge the gaps.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Bush told the Urban League that blacks should reconsider their traditional loyalty to the Democratic Party, because he thinks they're being taken for granted.
After Friday's speech, Mr. Bush flies to a campaign event in New Hampshire, visiting his sixth state this week.
His re-election campaign added Colorado to the list of states where it is advertising in Spanish as it rolled out a new television commercial Thursday that says America has "opened its heart" to Hispanics under the Republican.
"No matter where we came from, or why we came. Here, we found opportunity, a better education for our children, the medical care our families deserve," the ad says, as flags and people from several Spanish-speaking countries fill the screen. "America, our country. George W. Bush, our president."
The ad is running on Spanish-language networks in Arizona, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico, where Mr. Bush had been on the air previously. He had not run ads in Colorado, although Democrats have been on the air there for a few months.
The Bush campaign will spend about $450,000, a sizable amount for commercials on Spanish-language networks, to broadcast the ad for more than a week in the five states.
Polls show a competitive presidential race and both parties are determined to sway Hispanics, the fastest-growing minority group whose votes will be crucial in battleground states that were decided by slim margins in 2000.
Combined, Kerry and an outside group, the New Democrat Network, have outspent Mr. Bush and Republicans by $1 million on Spanish-language networks.
The new ad is similar to a spot the president's brother, Jeb Bush, ran in his Florida gubernatorial race, and some of the same media consultants worked on both ads.
"We were able to put something together that worked very well in Florida and something that we think will work well elsewhere," said Lionel Sosa, a Bush media consultant specializing in Hispanic advertising.