George H.W. Bush: “Let me just make a couple of brief statements. Last April, as part of the national energy strategy, I signed an…”

“Let me just make a couple of brief statements. Last April, as part of the national energy strategy, I signed an Executive order that established goals for greater energy efficiency in the Federal Government, and that included the use of alternative fuel vehicles in the Federal fleet. This van, driven over here and delivered by Secretaries Lujan and Watkins and then the able head of the GSA, Mr. Austin, uses compressed natural gas. And yesterday GSA announced that this year it will purchase from U.S. automakers 3,125 alternative fuel vehicles for use in the Federal fleet. This program demonstrates our continuing com- mitment to implementing the national energy strategy, which promotes energy conservation and environmentally sound energy initiatives. I am also pleased to announce that in our '93 budget, fiscal '93 budget, I will include $15 million for the Department of Energy to assist other Government Agencies in purchasing alternative fuel vehicles. This should allow us to purchase over 5,000 alternative fuel vehicles next year. These actions will put us ahead of schedule for the purchases of alternative fuel vehicles as required by the Clean Air Act. And I was so pleased to learn about the delivery of this van over to the Department of the Interior that we used a slight Presidential prerogative and invite Secretary Lujan and Secretary Watkins and Administrator Austin to drive the van here for use in the White House fleet. So, we preempted one. But natural gas is a clean burning fuel. It's got a great future in this country, and here's but one more manifestation of that.”