WASHINGTON - With gasoline prices near all-time highs, foreign conflicts driving up the cost of crude oil and U.S. congressional elections fast approaching, a group of Democratic Party thinkers offered a strategy Wednesday aimed at curbing what President Bush calls America's "addiction" to oil.
The Center for American Progress, led by many former top officials in the Clinton administration, released a plan that calls for at least 25 percent of the liquid fuels consumed by the United States in 2025 to be produced from renewable energy sources.
The strategy seeks to promote cleaner alternative energy sources as a means to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil and to mitigate what scientists warn are clear signs of global warming made worse by gaseous emissions from cars and industries.
The center's Energy Security for the 21st Century plan would:
_Boost government spending on research into ethanol, bio-diesel and next-generation technologies that could convert virtually any plant product into a fuel source.
_Mandate unspecified higher fuel economy standards for automobiles and trucks.
_Require that sources of renewable energy account for 10 percent to 25 percent of U.S. electricity generation by 2025.
_Promote use of liquefied natural gas. This wouldn't reduce dependence on foreign energy sources but it could increase use of a clean-burning fuel.
_Develop an emission credit market that would reward low-pollution power producers and create a system of credit trade-offs to offset dirtier producers. All new coal plants would be subject to this so-called "cap-and-trade system."
The plan also would levy a tax on oil when world prices dip below an unspecified certain point. The price floor would keep oil expensive enough to ensure financial incentives to create alternative fuels.
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