    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2003, Book II)]
    [August 15, 2003]
    [Pages 1014-1015]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1014]]

    Exchange With Reporters in Thousand Oaks, California
    August 15, 2003

        Q. Do you have time for a couple of questions?
        The President. Yes, I'll answer a couple of questions.

    North American Power Blackout/Energy Legislation

        Q. Can you update us on the situation back East, what you've heard,
    whether there's been any progress toward finding out what possibly
    caused the blackout?
        The President. Yes, it's going to take a while, I think. But we will
    find out what caused the blackout, and we'll deal with it. I view it as
    a wake-up call. You know, I've been concerned that our infrastructure--
    the delivery system is old and antiquated. And I think this is an
    indication of the fact that we need to modernize the electricity grid.
        So it's a good opportunity for us to analyze what went wrong and to
    deal with it. We don't know yet what went wrong, but we will.
        Q. There's a bill pending in Congress, the energy bill, that's
    pretty broad in scope. There's also a piece of that bill that's smaller
    that would fix this particular problem. Would you urge Congress to act
    on that?
        The President. Yes, I think what we need to do is take a look at
    what went wrong, analyze the problem, and come up with a solution. And I
    think it's very important--I'm going to say this down here in the
    remarks--the people in New York and in the Northeast and in parts of the
    Midwest were--showed the great character of America in very difficult
    circumstances. The people responded in calm fashion. They worked hard to
    help their neighbors in need, and they showed the rest of the country
    and the world the true mettle of the American people.
        As I said yesterday, I'm most pleased by the fact that we've got a--
    our emergency response was good. They acted well. And I doubt that would
    have happened--the response would have been this good--prior to
    September the 11th. But the creation of the Homeland Security
    Department, coupled with the modernization of communications between
    State and local and Federal officials, really enabled the system to work
    well. And now we've got to figure out how to make the electricity system
    have the redundancy necessary so that if there is an outage like there
    has been throughout our history, that it doesn't affect as many people
    as it did in the past.
        Q. Sir, are you worried, though, that power still isn't restored to
    so many millions of people and may not be through the weekend?
        The President. Well, I think, you know--listen, everybody is working
    hard to get it restored as quickly as possible. I think it's going to
    take a while to get 100 percent of the power up and running. And that's
    why it's important for our citizens who have got electricity in the
    Northeast and the Midwest would be wise about how they use the
    electricity. They must conserve, because the more conservation there is
    now, the more likely it is their neighbor is going to end up having
    electricity in a quicker fashion.
        Q. In recent weeks, you have mentioned several times the need to
    pass your comprehensive energy plan. Is there anything in there that
    would have helped or mitigated this?
        The President. Well, I think part of the plan recognizes that the
    grid needs to be modernized, the delivery systems need to be modernized.
    And obviously something like this isn't going to happen overnight. But
    it is--it begins to address the problem, that this particular incident
    has made abundantly clear to the American people that we've got an
    antiquated system, and now

    [[Page 1015]]

    we've got to figure out what went wrong and how to address it. And I'm
    confident we will.
        Q. You said yesterday that while you've made some offers of Federal
    assistance, the States and locals didn't really seem to need much help;
    they had it under control. Is that still the situation?
        The President. Actually, as I understand it, as of this morning, at
    about 5:30 a.m. Pacific Coast time, there was a request for a generator
    by New York City from the Department of Defense, which we're now working
    on delivering.
         Look, for example, Tommy Thompson
    started calling around to hospitals and asking, did everybody get what
    they need? And Tom Ridge was calling, which made
    it clear--abundantly clear--that where we had assets that could help,
    we're more than willing to help. This is a national problem, and the
    Federal Government has got a responsibility to help local and State
    officials. As far as I know, the one specific request to date was this
    generator.
         Thank you all.

    Note: The exchange began at 8:35 a.m. at the Santa Monica Mountains
    National Recreation Area. A tape was not available for verification of
    the content of this exchange.