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Bush Rejects Davis' Plea For Price Caps
US President George W. Bush, on his first official visit to California, on Tuesday rejected Governor Gray Davis' call for federal caps on soaring electricity prices.
Bush instead pushed his call to conserve the electricity at federal installations as a way to ease the ongoing power crisis in California.
Davis, a Democrat who is believed to challenge Bush for the presidency in 2004, demanded the president bring down electricity prices that have cost California nearly 8 billion dollars since January.
"It doesn't matter if someone thinks we should have relief; the law says we should have relief," the governor said in a public discussion with victims of the energy crunch, staged in the same hotel where Bush was staying.
But in his remarks to the Los Angeles World Affair Council, Bush rejected Davis plea, saying "price caps do nothing to reduce demand, and they do nothing to increase supply." He insisted that price limits will create "more serious shortages and therefore, even higher prices."
Bush called for an end to the finger-pointing over the issue of power crisis. "Energy is a problem that requires action: Not politics, not excuses, but action. And blame-shifting is not action -- it is distraction," he said.
During a tour to the Marine base Camp Pendletonin earlier the day, Bush announced that 150 million dollars will be used to help low-income Americans pay energy bills this summer. He said he will ask Congress to approve the additional spending for this fiscal year, which ends in October.
Bush's delayed visit to California after taking office has drawn widespread protests from Californians who charged that his delay was meant to retaliate for his crushing defeat in the state by Democrat former Vice-President Al Gore in last year's elections.
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