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Press Briefing by Dana Perino
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary July 23, 2008

Press Briefing by Dana Perino James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

˙ /news/releases/2008/07/20080723-6.wm.v.html ˙˙Press Briefings


12:26 P.M. EDT

MS. PERINO: Hello, everyone. I'll start off with two announcements. As you
all know, there's a hurricane brewing in -- off the Gulf, actually hitting
land now. The federal government has been working closely with the state of
Texas to prepare for the hurricane called Dolly. We've been identifying
resources and pre-positioning supplies in case they are needed after the
landfall. And FEMA has deployed a couple of teams there and will have more
information for you if you need it.

Also today, in an effort to address the root causes of high energy prices,
House Republicans are introducing their American Energy Act. Their proposal
includes many of the provisions the President called on Congress to act
upon, including opening up access to our energy resources in the Outer
Continental Shelf, up in ANWR, allowing development of oil shale resources,
and streamlining permitting processes for refineries.

The President recognizes, as do Republicans in Congress, that we don't need
just one energy source, we need all of them. That's why we are making
critical investments in things like solar and wind, hydrogen fuel cell
technologies, hybrid plug-in vehicles, as well as cutting-edge clean coal
plants and advanced nuclear power technologies.

Backers of this legislation clearly understand that we need to increase
domestic fuel supply with appropriate safeguards for the environment. We
hope Democratic leaders will recognize this critical need, and stop
standing between the American people and the vast energy resources we have
at home. And I would note that the Republicans called for a vote before
they leave for their August 10th beginning of their recess.

Q On energy prices, oil prices have dropped about $10 a barrel in recent
days. Does the President think that that's in any way linked with his
lifting of the ban on oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf?

MS. PERINO: I haven't asked him, and it could be, but we don't predict what
happens in the market. We can't really tell. Certainly taking that action
would send a signal that at least the executive branch is serious about
moving forward and increasing the amount of supply that we have in America,
but we'll have to see what the Congress does. And if they decide to move
forward with this responsible piece of legislation the House Republicans
are introducing today, maybe it would have more of an impact.

It could also be that there's less demand out there. We believe that the
fundamental problem of high energy prices is one of supply and demand.
We've seen in our own country that people are starting to drive a little
bit less, given the high prices. So markets work in that case, but markets
are also -- only work best when there's enough supply. So I couldn't tell
you if he thinks it's --

Q Senator McCain credits the President with that, but you're not willing to
-- you don't think it's --

MS. PERINO: I don't know if we fully deserve the credit, but I do think
that it was important to send a signal to the market that we are serious
about moving forward. The President tried to get Congress to work with him
in a bipartisan fashion, asking them to lift their ban at the same time.
Unfortunately, they've not even been willing to hold even a single hearing
on it. So we decided to move forward ourselves, and hopefully that would
spur them to action, as well.

Q Dana, can you expand on the thinking behind lifting the veto threat on
the housing bill?

MS. PERINO: Sure.

Q Specifically, how much back-and-forth was there? Was this a tough call,
an obvious thing? And what's the thinking behind it?

MS. PERINO: On the housing bill, President Bush -- I'll just remind you
that it was August 31st of last year when the housing crisis was emerging
that President Bush held an event here and called on Congress and asked
them to work with him in a bipartisan fashion to pass legislation that
would do several things -- one, modernize the FHA, which is the Federal
Housing Administration, and to also establish these reforms that he's been
calling for for years for the housing GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Unfortunately, we're now almost to the end of July, so it's been almost 11
months and they haven't acted, even while we've had this housing crisis.

As the housing bill went through the legislative process, one of the things
that was added was a $4-billion bailout for lenders in the form of
Community Development Block Grants -- CDBG funds -- that the President did
not think was an appropriate use of money. He thought it was wasteful and
that it would encourage lenders to foreclose on properties rather than have
them work with the homeowner to try to help them rework their loan and be
able to stay in their house.

Over the past several weeks, or I'd say the last few weeks, Secretary
Paulson has been increasingly concerned about the stability of the
marketplace when it comes to the housing GSEs. I think it was about 10 days
ago, on a Sunday evening, he asked Congress to help quickly pass some
authorities that the Treasury needed in respect to reform of the GSEs. That
provision would be included in the bill that the House is going to pass
today.

We also, in the past several days, have realized that Congress is not going
to get a lot done before it leaves for its next recess, which is August
10th, and they're probably not going to be back until mid-September. Given
that the housing legislation is so essential right now, and that we need it
promptly, the President agreed to accept Secretary Paulson's recommendation
that it was more important to accept the bill in this form so that we could
get the housing reforms in the form of the GSEs, and to go ahead and sign
the bill, even though it has the CDBG money in it.

Q How exceptional is this? How rare is this?

MS. PERINO: In terms of a compromise?

Q Well, in terms of the President -- sounds to me like he's holding his
nose and saying, I won't veto this.

MS. PERINO: No, I actually don't think it's all that unusual. I mean,
there's -- when legislation finally comes to the President's desk, it often
has a few things in there that he might not be able to support or that he
wouldn't have recommended, but when there is bipartisan support for a bill,
he will sign it.

One of the things is, we believe that we would have won a prolonged veto
fight on this bill, because we think there's enough support, especially
with House Republicans, to have rejected this $4 billion in bailout for
lenders. However, given that we want and need for the Treasury Secretary to
have these new authorities that he's asking for, we don't think that
waiting until mid-September, at best, would be prudent.

Q Is this then maybe the best way to understand the severity and the
urgency of the housing crisis, that he is sort of suspending his sense of
dislike about this provision because something really needs to be done
right now

MS. PERINO: Well, I would say that President Bush recognized the need for
this legislation early on, and the call for GSE legislation reforms was
made in 2003, the first time it was actually asked for in legislation. So
we've waited several years. But then, increasingly, last summer, August
31st, the President said we absolutely need this legislation to help us
deal with the housing downturn, the deal with the instability that has been
in the marketplace for this past year. So we think that this is important
for the overall health of the market. It's not just to help homeowners but
to help low-income homeowners, in particular, when it comes to those
housing GSEs.

But we also think it will have a positive impact on the overall economy,
and that's why the President has decided to sign the bill.

Q Can you comment on camera -- I know you had a lot of comment this morning
-- about the President's comments about Wall Street being drunk, and what
he meant?

MS. PERINO: Sure. President Bush has had similar sentiments before when
he's talking about how over the years Wall Street was dealing with very
complex financial instruments, and it's clear now to everybody that those
markets didn't fully understand the risk that all of those instruments
posed to the overall health of the economy and the instability in the
market. And the President has described it the way others have. Obviously
he did it in a very -- in a way that was with much candor.

Q And more colorful. But he meant they were irresponsible? I mean, when you
say "drunk" what do you mean?

MS. PERINO: Well, I actually haven't spoken to him about this, but I
imagine what he means, as I've heard him describe before in public and in
private, is that Wall Street let themselves get carried away and they did
not understand -- the markets did not understand the risk that these
newfangled financial instruments would pose to the market, and now we're
having to deal with this.

Q To follow on that, Dana, I understand the President obviously could be
more candid in his comments in a private situation. But why is it that he
could not have been candid in these kind of terms on this subject when --

MS. PERINO: He said these other things before, and I think you should go
back and look at the press conferences over the past year as the markets
have been in a downturn, especially when it comes to talking about the
housing issue and subprime issue. So I think that he has said things
similar in public before, and we do have private moments as everybody gets
to have a private moment. The President was at a private residence at a
private fundraiser, and obviously everybody got a chance to see that
because someone decided to release some video of it. It is what it is.

Q That's pretty sharp criticism of Wall Street, in particular, for the way
it handled --

MS. PERINO: I actually don't think that -- I don't think the criticism is
any different, it's just said with a little bit more candor and more
bluntly.

Q Dana, what did you mean by financial instruments? I mean --

MS. PERINO: In particular, one of my examples would be just the subprime
loan packages that everybody has expressed some concern about, now looking
back.

Q And does the President's concern about this suggest there needed to be
more regulation, which he generally opposes?

MS. PERINO: Well, President Bush -- but remember what I'm talking about in
terms of this GSE reform. The key part of that, it would establish an
independent strong regulator for the housing GSEs. They would do basically
two things: One, make sure that the housing GSEs are focused on their core
mission, which is to help homeowners, and in particular, help low-income
homeowners. And secondly, it would provide for a regulator to make sure
that the GSEs are well-capitalized, which will then, overall, help the
stability in the marketplace, and then hopefully help improve the economy.

Q And keep Wall Street is sober?

MS. PERINO: A great new slogan.

Q A quick one to just follow on the package. The $3.9 billion is what he
sort of objected to, that the provision --

MS. PERINO: Objected to the provision -- he didn't just object to the
money, he objects to the concept.

Q Right, but it was -- that was the price tag on the concept.

MS. PERINO: That is what they will pass today.

Q Are you understanding the total -- or OMB's understanding of the total
cost of the housing bill and not just the support for the GSEs -- how much
is this sort of --

MS. PERINO: I'd have to go back and look in terms of the new GSEs -- I'm
sorry -- in terms of the new authorities, we don't have a score on it. CBO
issued a score. But our belief and our intent is that the GSEs will never
have to use this money, they will never have to access it. They haven't yet
and we don't believe that they will have to. But we think it's important
that the Treasury Secretary have the authority to be able to step in and
help to stabilize the market in case he needs it.

Elaine.

Q Dana, what do you say to Republicans who are concerned that this amounts
to a bailout in their eyes, and there's already, of course, the threats to
filibuster on --

MS. PERINO: Well, we absolutely understand. We are not supportive of that
provision of the bill. However, as I said, given that Congress is about to
leave for eight weeks or so, by the time they get back -- if they actually
-- if we were in a prolonged veto fight we wouldn't have enough time to
actually get it done as soon as the Secretary of the Treasury says he needs
the authorities. So we had to make a hard -- a hard choice, and the choice
that we made is that the President will accept Secretary Paulson's
recommendation and sign the bill. And we'll sign it as soon as we get it.

Go ahead, Goyal.

Q Two quick questions. One, the government of Prime Minister -- (inaudible)
-- is survived by the -- (inaudible) -- vote, and also it looks like that
the new -- (inaudible) -- is ready for the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal.
Do you think the U.S. Congress will be ready by the time of -- before they
leave? Or how hard do you think now President Bush will push this issue?

MS. PERINO: Well, we hope so. We're going to continue to work with everyone
in the community that's been supportive of this bill -- or this measure,
this initiative. There's some steps that have to take place before our
Congress can even take a vote on it, and Congress has to be in session for
30 days for it to happen.

So we remain optimistic. We're going to try to work with these communities
closely in the next few weeks, but it's getting down to the wire, and
that's why we have a sense of urgency about it.

Q And second, as far as high rise of health costs in the U.S. is concerned,
there is a world-famous yogi now here -- at expo center in Virginia, and he
is saying that message for President Bush, which he regards very highly, he
said that he can cut costs by 50 percent, and also rise in the health of
the Americans in this country. He said that if President can think of
bringing this issue of yoga -- (inaudible) -- in this country.

MS. PERINO: I think President Bush will let everyone choose how best to
exercise.

I'm going to go to the non-birthday birthday boy, Olivier.

Q Thanks, Dana. You said last week you'd -- "you" meaning the White House
-- would have a look at the International Criminal Court's efforts to get
Mr. Bashir -- has the United States arrived at a position on the ICC's
warrant? And I understand that there may be some action at the U.N. that
would either endorse or block this effort. Do you know what the U.S.
position is on that?

MS. PERINO: I will have to check on the U.N. I know that because President
Bush and others have continued to push the issue in the U.N. Security
Council that the issue of Darfur and Sudan, making sure that that peace
agreement could actually be implemented and take hold is very important,
especially when it comes to improving the human condition of the millions
of people who live there.

As it pertains to U.N. Security Council action, I'll need to check. And
also with the ICC, we are not a party to the criminal court, and while we
can review it and monitor it, we really don't have a lot of say in it.

Q Okay. And you said this morning -- you said it was important for the
Iraqis to hold provincial elections by the end of the year. Does that mean
that the October -- the floated October date of the election, is that gone
now? Is that --

MS. PERINO: I think the Iraqis themselves have said over the past few weeks
that because the legislative debate had taken longer than they had hoped
that the October date is probably unlikely, just because of all the
logistics that have to get in place in order for there to be a national
election. But I understand that they have started the voter registration
process, I believe. So they are starting to lay the groundwork so that if
they do get this law passed, they could turn the key and get the elections
going.

Les.

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. For years, Islamic states have been
trying to push through the United Nations a proposal that it's called
"combating the defamation of religion," which the American Center for Law
and Justice has deplored as anti-Christian bigotry, and which the European
Center for Law and Justice calls direct violation of international law. And
my question: What is the White House position on this?

MS. PERINO: I'll have to check. This is the first I've heard of that
particular initiative. So we'll check.

Q Could you tell us which day the President will speak at the Republican
National Convention, presuming of course that he has been scheduled to do
so?

MS. PERINO: Yes, it looks like Monday night, September 1st --

Q Thank you very much.

MS. PERINO: -- which is traditionally when the incumbent speaks.

Okay, Mark.

Q On the subject of speeches, tomorrow the President's remarks --

MS. PERINO: The freedom agenda speech?

Q Yes. What particular aspect does he wish the highlight? What's the
context?

MS. PERINO: You know, the speech is still in flux in terms of the writing
and the drafting. Let me take a look at it and we'll get you something this
evening. Emily will help us get something for you. I don't know if I'll be
able to get excerpts out. I will try, but it's probably unlikely I'll be
able to do that today.

Yes, sir.

Q Any reaction to Iran's President today saying that Iran will not change
anything in its policy on the nuclear program?

MS. PERINO: Look, this is the same type of rhetoric that we constantly
hear. And it's unfortunate for the people of Iran that their leaders
continue to isolate them from the rest of the international community.

And I would point to last weekend, when our diplomatic process was
reinvigorated because of a non-response response at a meeting that the
Iranians came to. They were given an additional two weeks, and I think we
should actually wait and let that process take place, and not take too much
stock in the day to day comments.

Q Thank you.

END 12:42 P.M. EDT
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