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DOT 31-06
Contact: Brian Turmail, Tel.: 202-366-4570
Thursday, February 23, 2006
U.S. Deputy Transportation Chief Says "Energy Diet" Needed To Curb U.S. Oil Addiction
Transportation
industries will have to go on an “energy diet” to help end America’s addiction
to oil, U.S. Transportation Deputy Secretary Maria Cino said today after a
demonstration of how Rhode Island’s switch from light bulbs to LEDs in traffic
signals across the state is saving millions of watts of electricity and hundreds
of thousands of taxpayer dollars.
The nation’s deputy transportation chief said there are several innovative
technologies and practices under way to help achieve the energy goals spelled
out by President Bush during last month’s “State of the Union” speech.
“America is the most mobile society on earth, and that’s not going to change,”
Cino said. “What is going to change,” she added, “is that our cars, trains,
airplanes and ships must use significantly less oil, if they use oil at all, to
move people and products in the future.”
Rhode Island’s conversion of 87 percent of state maintained traffic signals from
conventional bulbs to LED lights has reduced energy consumption by nearly 90
percent and saves taxpayers $450,000 annually in electricity costs, Cino said.
She added the initiative was a great example of “how even some of the simplest
changes can save energy. They are showing the Nation just how easy it can be to
tighten their energy belts.”
She said the Bush Administration is doing its part to encourage new energy
technology, including the investment of nearly $10 billion since 2001 to develop
cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources, including
alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuels, better batteries for hybrid cars, and
pollution-free hydrogen fuel cells.
“Quitting oil does not mean that America quits moving,” Cino said.
Cino and her boss, Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, are on the road this week to
promote energy saving initiatives occurring in the nation’s transportation
industries. This morning, Cino toured a plant in Malta, NY where scientists are
making lightweight composite metals for more fuel-efficient automobile parts.
Mineta toured a plant in suburban Detroit yesterday that makes power-saving
vehicle systems that improve automobile fuel efficiency and rode with Union
Pacific locomotive engineers in Omaha, NE to learn how they are saving millions
of gallons of diesel fuel just by learning new techniques for driving their
trains.
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