MINNEAPOLIS — President Bush yesterday laid out three ambitious goals for the high-tech future: A tax-free, high-speed Internet nationwide by 2007, affordable hydrogen-powered vehicles in showrooms soon and electronic medical records for most Americans by 2010.
Offering specific and expansive steps to achieve the goals, most of which already are funded, the president issued a directive yesterday that allows technology companies to run high-speed lines across federal lands.
“It’s the flow of information and the flow of knowledge, which will help transform America and keep us on the leading edge of change,” Mr. Bush said in a speech at the annual convention of the American Association of Community Colleges.
“Broadband technology must be affordable in order to make sure it gets spread to all corners of the country,” he said. “If you want broadband access throughout the society, Congress must ban taxes on access,” he said to applause from about 2,000 educators and business leaders gathered at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
Mr. Bush already had signed into a law a two-year extension of the Internet Access Tax moratorium, but it expired last fall. The House has passed a permanent moratorium on user taxes levied against consumers who subscribe to broadband. The Senate is scheduled to address the issue this week.
The president said that while the use of the high-speed Internet connection known as broadband has more than tripled in the last four years to 24 million Americans, the United States ranks 10th worldwide in its availability.
The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, who yesterday stumped in another tight battleground state, West Virginia, attacked Mr. Bush for not making the tax ban a part of earlier tax-cut packages and charged that his nationwide broadband goal is unachievable.
“The Bush broadband policies don’t do anything to provide the new resources that will be needed to deploy broadband in rural and urban areas, and they are not addressing the regulatory barriers that prevent deployment,” said Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts senator.
But Mr. Bush pledged to “clear regulatory hurdles” and the White House said the directive on easements over federal lands will spur state and local governments to follow suit.
Also yesterday, Mr. Bush announced that the Energy Department has selected partners for more than $350 million in new research projects to remove roadblocks to developing hydrogen-fuel technology.
Although every president since Jimmy Carter has touted the benefits of alternative-fuel vehicles, Mr. Bush is pushing forward with an ambitious plan to move hydrogen cars from the seminar to the showroom.
“I think that we can use our technology and innovation to get beyond the false choices of the past,” he said. “When we get it right here, when we get the hydrogen car up and running, not only will it make America a better place, we’ll become the innovator of the world.”
Mr. Bush also set a goal for most Americans to have electronic health records within 10 years.
To speed the changeover to electronic records, the president doubled funding to $100 million for demonstration projects and created a new sub-Cabinet position to coordinate efforts.
But Mr. Bush said there is no debate about who would eventually control access to sensitive personal medical information.
“Patients will have control over their privacy,” he said.
After the speech, the president went to nearby Edina to headline a $1 million Republican fund-raiser, his fourth such event in a week.
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