Bush again calls for drilling in Alaska wildlife preserve

WASHINGTON — With gasolene terms reaching yet another new high today, President Shrub reiterated his phone call to open up the Arctic Zone National Wildlife Safety to boring and defended his policy of adding petroleum to the nation's exigency oil stockpile.

But Shrub declined to leap into the political affray over whether the federal authorities should give automobilists a taxation vacation on federal excise taxation tax on gasoline.

"One of the chief grounds for high gas terms is that planetary oil production is not keeping up with growing demand," Shrub said during a Rose Garden news conference.

"If United States Congress is truly interested in solving the problem, they can direct the right signaling by saying we're going to research for oil and gas in the U.S. territories, starting with ANWR," Shrub said. "And we can do so in an environmentally friendly way."

Lawmakers have got blocked geographic expedition in the refuge, Shrub argued, despite Energy Department estimations the country could give a million barrels of oil a twenty-four hours — adequate to make 27 million gals of gasolene and Diesel fuel.

"That would be about a 20 percentage addition of ... petroleum oil production over U.S. levels, and it would likely intend less gas prices," Shrub said. "And yet such as attempts to research in ANWR have got been consistently blocked."

Bush argued that gap more domestic countries to boring "sends a signaling to the human race that ... we're going to seek to go less reliant on upon foreign oil."

At the same time, Shrub defended his administration's scheme of continuing to shoot oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, despite record oil prices, arguing the amount of oil going into the reserve is too little to impact oil prices.

"We're buying, at the moment, about 67,000 to 68,000 barrels of oil per day" to fill up the reserve, Shrub said. "World demand is 85 million barrels a day. So the purchases for the (reserve) business relationship for 0.1 percentage of planetary demand, and I don't believe that's going to impact price."

Bush refused to state whether he would back up a proposal backed by Republican presidential campaigner Sen. Toilet McCain of Grand Canyon State and Democratic campaigner Sen. Edmund Hillary Rodham Bill Clinton of New House Of York to loosen up the 18.4-cent per gallon federal taxation on gasoline.

"What I'm not going to make is leap right in the center of a presidential campaign," Shrub said. "We'll allow the campaigners reason out their ideas."

But Shrub said he would see the suggestion.

On the economy, Shrub declined to name the current lag a recession, even though many economic experts state the state is already in one.

"You know, the words on how to define the economic system don't reflect the anxiousness the American people feel," Shrub said. "The norm individual doesn't really care what we name it. The norm individual desires to cognize whether or not we cognize that they're paying higher gasolene terms and they're worried about staying in their homes."

Asked if he thought authorities figs owed out Wednesday on the nation's gross domestic merchandise for the time period from January through March would demo the state was indeed in a recession, Shrub said, "I believe they'll demo we're in a very slow economy."

On other subjects, Bush:

• Said he believes the NATO-led missionary post in Islamic State Of Afghanistan is making paces in tamping down "a very resilient enemy." Shrub said that he believes the NATO-led missionary post in the state is succeeding. "We're making progress, but it's also a tough battle,"Bush said. "

• Declined to openly criticise former President Howard Carter for his meetings last hebdomad with representatives of Hamas, the Palestinian grouping the State Department sees a terrorist organization. "Anybody can speak to whomever they want, but I desire people to understand the job is Hamas," said Bush. "Foreign policy and peace is undermined by Hamas. That's the ground I'm not talking with them," he said.

• Spoke about intelligence that was released alleging that Syrian Arab Republic and North Korean Peninsula were cooperating on a cloak-and-dagger atomic reactor. He said the intelligence was made public to step up coerce level on North Korean Peninsula to halt its ain atomic programme and to pressure Syrian Arab Republic to stop destabilizing the Center East by aiding insurrectionists in Republic Of Iraq and Hamas in Lebanon. He said it was also meant to direct a message to Iran.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

david.ivanovich@chron.com