[OBAMA] That's why today I'm directing agencies to purchase 100% alternative fuel, hybrid, or electric vehicles, by 2015. All of them should be alternative fuel.

[Applause]

[ASSURAS] More from the president's energy speech on Wednesday, as he directed the government to get behind alternative energy vehicles in its fleets. He also reiterated his call for a million electric vehicles on the roads by 2015. Earlier, I sat down with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and asked him how that target could be met, since only 1,800 of the new EVs have been sold in the U.S. so far.

[LaHOOD] Well, lookit, with gas prices as high as they are, I think people are going to become more accustomed to looking at alternatives for their automobiles. The president gets it. I think that's why the president has said that we need alternative forms of transportation, whether it's electrification of cars, high-speed rail, or other opportunities to save gasoline. We know that people are hurting right now with these high gasoline prices. And I think the American people will really begin to look at electrified automobiles as a way to save gasoline, particularly as it continues to go up.

[ASSURAS] But embracing them is another thing. They're expensive; their batteries are not ready for prime time. There's range anxiety, which is running out of juice while you're on the road. It's going to be tough.

[LaHOOD] You know, lookit, this is a very tough economy, and people are looking for every way that they can to save money, and if they can save money as gasoline prices go up -- I think what the president and this administration has promoted is the idea that, when you buy an electrified car -- For example, if you buy the Volt, you get a $7,800 tax credit. That's a lot of money to people. And that's a way for people to buy an electrified automobile -- a battery-powered car, if you will -- save a lot of money for the high price of gasoline, and then really begin to get into the kind of automobile that we're hoping that people will do, not only to clean up the air, but to save on high prices for gas.

[ASSURAS] Right, "get into" -- in the meantime, it's still a gasoline culture. There are high prices in gasoline, so how does a country fill in the gap until electric comes into play? Does that mean more offshore drilling for oil?

[LaHOOD] What it means for this administration, and certainly for transportation, is, we're continuing to promote high-speed rail. Other forms of transportation. Whether it's transit, mass transit, buses. I was just in Portland. We're promoting streetcars that are made in America.

[ASSURAS] Still driving their cars, though, and still needing gasoline, so what do you do on the energy level?

[LaHOOD] Well, we've worked very hard on CAFE standards. That's the standard that's set by DOT and EPA to get higher gasoline mileage. We've got a standard now for 2012, which is 26 miles per gallon. 2016 is 35 miles per gallon. And now we're working on standards that will take us beyond 2017.

[ASSURAS] Well, you brought up high-speed rail several times. And I'd like to ask you about that, because, again, the president wants 80% of Americans to have access to high-speed trains within 25 years. How do we catch up to the rest of the world? And I have to quote some numbers here, because here in the U.S., the ACELA is the fastest train. It doesn't have a dedicated track. It averages 68 miles per hour, top speed 150. France -- average speed for bullet trains is 134 miles per hour, top speed 200. And you have China, and it averages 120 miles per hour, a high of 220 miles per hour. Why is this country so far behind the others?

[LaHOOD] Because we've never made the investment. The big vision that President Obama has is to connect 80% of America in the next 25 years with high-speed rail. In California, you'll have trains running over 200 miles an hour, 'cause we're going to build new infrastructure. Think of how many cars will be taken off the road. Think about how much gasoline will be saved. Think about how much CO2, how much greener the air will be in California. In Illinois, you'll have a train from Chicago to St. Louis in a little over two hours. It's now a six-hour drive from Chicago to St. Louis. Again, hundreds of thousands of cars off the road, greener, cleaner air. That's why President Obama is pushing high-speed rail as an alternative to automobiles.

[ASSURAS] How do you actually make it happen? How do you, as a secretary of transportation, your department, make it happen? What can you do and what can't you do when you have states making their own decisions, localities making their own decisions? It's not just up to you.

[LaHOOD] No, and I'm proud to say that there are at least 30-plus areas in the country that have accepted money for high-speed rail. They've accepted it, freely, voluntarily -- they want it. And as Florida and Ohio and Wisconsin said they didn't want it, I had people lined up outside my door here at DOT really wanting to get into the high-speed rail business.

[ASSURAS] Let me ask you about cleaning up the air, because your department says that with high-speed rail, the country would reduce oil use by 125 million barrels per year. Yet this country uses almost 20 million barrels per day of oil. So, it sounds like just a drop in the bucket.

[LaHOOD] Well, you couple high-speed rail with more transit, which we're doing; more streetcars, which we're doing; more light rail; higher CAFE standards. It's a combination of a lot of different things. Giving people a tax rebate if they buy an electrified automobile. You couple all these things together, you begin to save a lot of gasoline. You save people's, their pocketbook, that they have to pay in order to pay for the high price of gasoline. And, coupled together, it's a total plan that the president has and a big vision the president has, to create lots of alternatives so we can relieve our dependence on crude oil.

[ASSURAS] But are you going to be able to handle that spike just by changing transit, or does there have to be more domestic oil production in this country?

[LaHOOD] Well, our job here at DOT, and the president's vision for transportation, is to create many different options for people. The Department of Energy and the Department of Interior, we will work with on opportunities, which will include looking at production of oil. But what we're focused on here, and what the president is focused on when it comes to transportation -- high-speed rail, CAFE standards, electrified cars -- all of the things that we've talked about, to give people all the options they need to cut down their use on gasoline and to help their bottom line, so to speak, as they, you know, have their own budgets to deal with.

[ASSURAS] Mr. Secretary, thank you for your time.

[LaHOOD] Thank you.