Bush to Offer Bold Energy Plan

Jan. 23, 2007 — -- President Bush will lay out a bold plan in his State of the Union tonight for Americans to cut their consumption of all gasoline by 20 percent over the next 10 years, ABC News has learned.

Bush will present the energy plan one year after he told Americans the nation was "addicted to oil."

Such a dramatic reduction in gasoline consumption would require new standards of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy system, known as CAFE, and an increased availability in the U.S. auto market of vehicles that run on alternative fuels.

"He's going to set a very ambitious goal for this country: to reduce our gasoline usage by 20 percent in 10 years," Deputy White House Chief of Staff Joel Kaplan said in an exclusive interview with ABC News. "'Twenty in 10,' we are calling it. It's very ambitious, but we think it's achievable, and I think a lot of Americans are going to rally to that cause."

"The president is going to propose a new, much more aggressive mandatory fuel standard for renewable and alternative fuels," Kaplan said.

"On the demand side, it means we need to have more fuel-efficient vehicles, and the president is going to propose that Congress give him the authority to reform and modernize the passenger-car fleet, just as we've done for the light-truck fleet."