What the presidents said about energy

[October 31, 2008]  (AP)  President Bush and the six presidents before him have all called for reductions in the country's reliance on foreign oil, some promising energy independence that has yet to be achieved.

What they said:

"Let us set our national goal ... that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources. Let us pledge that by 1980, under Project Independence, we shall be able to meet America's energy needs from America's own energy resources." -- Richard M. Nixon, responding to Arab oil embargo, Nov. 7, 1973

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"I am recommending a plan to make us invulnerable to cutoffs of foreign oil. It will require sacrifice, but it -- and this is most important -- it will work." -- Gerald Ford, State of the Union address Jan. 15, 1975

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"This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. ... Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never." -- Jimmy Carter in a television address on July l5, 1979, in which he announced temporary oil import quotas

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"We must take steps to better protect ourselves from potential oil supply interruptions and increase our energy and national security." -- Ronald Reagan, in an energy security message to Congress on May 6, 1987, in which he raised concerns about "our increasing dependence on imported oil"

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"Conservation efforts are essential to keep our energy needs as low as possible. And we must then take advantage of our energy sources across the board: coal, natural gas, hydro and nuclear. Our failure to do these things has made us more dependent on foreign oil than ever before." -- George H.W. Bush in an address to Congress on Sept. 11, 1990, in the run-up to the Gulf War

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"The nation's growing reliance on imports of crude oil and refined products threatens the nation's security because they make us more vulnerable to oil supply disruptions." -- Bill Clinton in an energy security statement on Feb. 16, 1995

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"We can promote alternative energy sources and conservation, and we must. America must become more energy independent, and we will." -- George W. Bush, State of the Union address, Feb. 7, 2001

[Associated Press]

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