HILADELPHIA - Vice President Al Gore is offering what he hopes will be a balm to drivers pinched by steep gas prices - a ''no new taxes, no new bureaucracies'' energy policy that does nothing about today's prices but aims to cut oil dependence in the long term.
The 10-year package Gore outlined yesterday centered on $75 billion in tax incentives for the development and use of fuel-efficient and nonpolluting technologies.
''We will say to the nation's investors and entrepreneurs: If you invest in these new technologies, America will invest in you,'' the Democratic presidential contender said.
As Republican lawmakers were criticizing the Clinton-Gore administration in Washington for not doing more to bring down gasoline prices, Gore framed his energy strategy as a way ''to make sure Americans will be free forever from the dominance of big oil and foreign oil.''
Gore tried, in a round of satellite interviews with Midwest television stations, to place blame with his Republican presidential opponent, George W. Bush. ''My opponent comes out of the oil industry. His experience is as an oil company executive, and he (once) called for higher oil prices to boost the oil company profits,'' Gore said.
In the short term, he called for the Federal Trade Commission to conduct public hearings, including consumer testimony, as part of its investigation into the summer spike in prices.
Longer term, Gore said, ''We will prove once and for all that we can clean up pollution, make our power systems more efficient and more reliable, and move away from dependence on others - all with no new taxes, no new bureaucracies, and no onerous regulations.''
Squinting into a punishing Philadelphia sun, Gore delivered what his campaign billed as a major address on energy policy with his back to the natural-gas pipelines and smokeless stacks of Trigen, a cleaner-burning power plant serving the Center City neighborhood.
The vice president has made Pennsylvania, a targeted battleground for the November election, a fixture on his schedule.
Gore was going to Columbus, Ohio, today to detail proposed tax incentives for consumers to purchase environmentally friendly goods and services.
