Vice President Cheney Comments on ANWR
Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a telephone interview with The Rush Limbaugh Show Wednesday in which he commented on ANWR and the President’s views on the issue. The Vice President was asked about the fact that the President did not refer to the issue of oil exploration in the 10-02 Coastal Plain area of ANWR during his State of the Union address Tuesday evening. President Bush has been, and is, an ardent supporter of opening the 10-02 Area of ANWR to environmentally responsible oil and gas development to help lessen our dependence on foreign imported oil.
The President has on numerous times last year publicly included the ANWR issue in his speeches on the American energy problem. As well as the Executive Branch, the US Department of Energy and Department of Interior have equally promoted and supported the ANWR issue. All three have combined to put a strong pressure on Congress to pass legislation supporting the issue.
Below is a direct transcript of the interview’s ANWR question.
Rush Limbaugh starts:
Q: A couple of policy questions here before you go: In his focus on energy independence last night, for the first time in a long time, the President did not refer to drilling at ANWR. Is that off the table for you all?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, it's not off the table by any means. We'll keep pushing it because we think it makes eminent good sense. And we came very close in the last session to getting it, and we'll keep working on it. But he -- what he wanted to emphasize last night, of course, he took a long-term view here, reaching out as much as 20 years in terms of the effort to reduce our imports, but the emphasis on technology, the ability to pursue what we think are some imminent break-throughs in the R&D area that are going to allow us to produce more of the energy we need, even for our transportation system, here at home. So energy has been a constant theme since we got here. It's still going to be a big one going forward. But I thought this was a bold proposition last night. There's nothing that is in any way limited or timid when you talk about those kinds of basic fundamental changes to our economy.
The entire interview transcript can be viewed on the White House Web Site:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060201-7.html