Bush promotes energy plan on tour through Midwest

MILWAUKEE -- Seeking to fuel his own agenda, President Bush encouraged Americans to change their energy consumption habits and help move the nation away from its reliance on oil.\n"I think we're in an important moment in history," Bush said during his first stop of a Presidents' Day tour of the Midwest. "We have a chance to transform the way we power our economy and the way we lead our lives."\nBush spoke Monday at the buildings division of Johnson Controls Inc., which sells products designed to make its customers' properties more energy efficient.\nThe president and members of his Cabinet are crisscrossing the country this week to tout the energy ideas he presented in his State of the Union address. The focus on energy is part of an ongoing effort since the speech to highlight a different topic each week.\nBush's broad goal is to steer the nation toward energy independence and away from what he calls an addiction to oil.\nBush has placed energy improvement alongside education and health care as essential parts of making the United States more competitive with its global peers.\nEnergy is also a political issue in this midterm election year, one that hits home for people dealing with expensive winter heating and gasoline costs.\nDemocrats have derided Bush's proposals as recycled ideas that offer no short-term relief.\nIn Wisconsin, Bush put technological advancement in everyday terms -- cell phone batteries that last longer and lighter automotive parts that allow cars to go farther on a gallon of gas.\nEarlier Monday, in Glendale, Wis., Bush toured a technology center of Johnson Controls, which is also a prominent maker of automotive batteries. The company recently launched a new lab to study power-storage for hybrid-electric vehicles, an idea Bush embraces.\nAt the site, Bush peered into the back end of two Ford Escapes, one equipped with a nickel-metal hydride battery, the other with a newer Lithium-ion battery that was about half the size.\nBush says that advances in solar, wind and nuclear energy could change the way Americans power their homes and offices and that boosting alternative fuels could revamp transportation.\n"By changing our driving habits," Bush said, "we change our dependency on foreign sources of oil."\nIncreasing the use of nuclear power is another piece of Bush's energy package. The United States abandoned nuclear fuel reprocessing in the 1970s because of nuclear proliferation concerns, but Bush favors a new approach that advocates say poses much less risk.\n"I think we ought to start building nuclear power plants again," Bush said Monday. "I think it makes sense to do so."\nLater in the day, Bush was to tour a solar energy plan in Auburn Hills, Mich., underscoring his push for investment in clean electric power sources. He was then heading to Colorado, where he planned to speak at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory on Tuesday.