Bush Addresses Energy, Other Economic Concerns

WASHINGTON — President Bush urged Congress Tuesday to address soaring gasoline prices and what he called a "sour" economy, defending his administration against election-year charges that it has been tone deaf on the bread-and-butter issues bedeviling working Americans.

With government figures due out Wednesday that some economists fear could herald a recession, Bush conceded in a White House news conference that the country faces "very difficult economic times."

He asked Congress to pass a raft of legislation aimed at spurring domestic oil production and promoting a new generation of refineries, nuclear power plants and alternative fuels.

And he lamented a political shift toward what he called "isolationism and protectionism," as signaled by congressional reluctance to pass a free-trade accord the administration has negotiated with Colombia.

"It's a sign that the country is losing its confidence, to a certain extent," Bush said. "There's a lot of concern around the world, by the way, about America's retreat. They're wondering whether or not America is going to be a leader."

Bush stopped short of criticizing former President Jimmy Carter for meeting two weeks ago with leaders of the Palestinian party Hamas. The State Department considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization and it is U.S. policy to try to isolate its members.

"Anybody can talk to who they want," said Bush, who will travel to the Middle East next month. "Whether they're more effective, all we got to do is watch to see how Hamas behaves."

Quarterly growth figures due out Wednesday are likely to show that growth was negligible, or non-existent, in the first three months of the year. The economy grew by just 0.6 percent during the fourth quarter of 2007.

"There's no growth in this economy," said Donald Straszheim, vice chairman of Roth Capital Partners, a Los Angeles investment firm. "It's stuck in the mud."

Technically, a recession is two successive quarters of negative growth.

"The words on how to define the economy don't reflect the anxiety the American people feel," said Bush. "The average person doesn't really care what we call it. The average person wants to know whether or not we know that they're paying higher gasoline prices and they're worried about staying in their homes."

Millions of taxpayers are scheduled to receive rebate checks in the next week, part of a $168 billion economic stimulus package Bush and Congress agreed to in February.

"We'll see what the effects are," said Bush.

The moribund economy, however, hasn't reduced energy consumption in a way that might affect prices. Crude oil is approaching a record $120 a barrel, and a gallon of regular gasoline has edged about $3.60 nationwide.

Bush used the price spike to call, once again, for Congress to back his proposal to allow oil companies to drill in the environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a 19.2 million-acre area of federally owned tundra and mountains in northeastern Alaska.

Environmentalists opposed drilling on the property, home to polar bears, caribou and the bowhead whale.

Bush said, though, that new technologies make drilling "environmentally safe" and could produce 1 million barrels of oil a day - roughly 4 percent of the country's current demand.

"This is a litmus test issue for many in Congress. Somehow if you mention ANWR it means you don't care about the environment," said Bush. "Well, I'm hoping now people, when they say ANWR, means you don't care about the gasoline prices that people are paying."

As he has in the past, Bush eschewed commentary on the presidential campaign, other than to predict victory for his GOP colleague, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

McCain and Democratic hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have said they favor suspending the federal excise tax on gasoline through the summer driving season.

Clinton's Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, has said suspending the tax - 18.4 cents per gallon - would save consumers barely enough to buy half a tank of gas, belittling the idea as a band-aid approach to the larger issue of energy security.

"I'm open to any ideas and we'll analyze anything that comes up," Bush said of the gas tax holiday proposal. "If it's a good idea, we embrace it."