WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Bush ordered the government to purchase hybrid-powered vehicles and reduce the federal fleet’s petroleum consumption by two percent each year through 2015, according to the Los Angeles Times. The president’s order also directs the federal government to reduce “energy intensity,” a measure of its consumption, by three percent a year by 2015 in an effort to restrict the emission of the gases linked to global warming.

Bush said the government was being directed to purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles, which he said could be driven 20 miles before their batteries were drained and the engines needed to switch over to more conventional power, the Los Angeles Times reported. But he said the purchases only could be made when the vehicles are commercially available.

He said, however, that the potential federal market for such cars might increase the confidence of automobile manufacturers that a market for such new technology products could be developed, thus making them more commercially viable.

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