**INTRODUCTION: MR. SWISHER**

Our next speaker is Frederick L. Webber, someone who\'s really been a
well respected leader in Washington in both the public and private
sectors.

Since 2004, Mr. Webber has been President and the CEO of the Alliance of
Automobile Manufacturers, a trade association of nine car and light
truck manufacturers.

He retired from the American Chemistry Council in 2002, after nearly ten
years as CEO, and prior to that he served as Corporate Vice-President of
Scott Paper and Legislative Liaison for the National Forest Products
Association.

He served in the Nixon and Ford Administrations as Assistant Secretary
of Treasury for Legislative Affairs, Special Assistant to the President
for Legislative Affairs and also as Special Assistant for Legislative
Affairs to the Secretary of Labor.

Please join me in a warm welcome for Mr. Frederick Webber.

**[ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY & ALTERNATIVE]{.underline}**

**[FUEL AUTOMOBILES]{.underline}**

**MR. FREDERICK L. WEBBER**

MR. WEBBER: Good morning. As Randall explained my last job was
representing the chemical manufacturers. I was a skunk at the picnic at
every social gathering. I was once informed at a cocktail party that
chlorine is evil. When I explained it as critical to medicine, food
processing, swimming pools and drinking water, I was asked to please do
something about that.

I love to go to cocktail parties now. I love to go anywhere, where I can
talk about cars. Thanks a lot of inviting me.

I'm here to discuss a bold idea that is now being made real, alternative
fuels. Let me start by giving you the public's reaction to another bold
idea.

When John Kennedy, \-- President John Kennedy said in a speech to
Congress on May 25, 1961; exactly seven days before I graduated from
college, when he said that, "*We could land a man on the moon and bring
him safely back to earth and do it by the end of the decade*," the idea
did not go over well with some. Critics called it impossible and lunacy
and they were the kind ones.

Wernher von Braun, himself, the nation\'s far most Rocket Scientist, was
said to complain that, "*JFK had just committed the nation to a vast
squandering of resources."*

Even before JFK's speech, a Deputy NASA Administrator named Hugh Dryden,
when asked by reporters about putting a man on the moon, replied, "*It
certainly doesn't make any sense to me."* Welcome to my world.

Fortunately, while the naysayers have been clucking the world,
automakers have been driving steadily into the future of both vehicles
and energy.

A few things we want you to know about alternative fuel autos and
renewable fuels. First, we are working to develop these in tandem. Jim
Woolsey said, "*We have to do that*," and we are doing that.

Autos and fuels must be developed in harmony, that sounds Zen-like, but
the fact is that automaker partnerships with the energy industry are
critical to putting all of us on the right road to the industry, the
economy and the planet.

What specifically do we mean when we talk about alternative fuel autos
and renewable fuels? Automakers today are driving along two routes
towards sustainability. We are making new vehicles that run on
alternative fuels. We are also making enhancements to the conventional
engines. Right now, we have more than seventy-five models of advanced
technology vehicles on sale or in development.

These include hybrid electric vehicles; flex fuel vehicles that are
ethanol capable, and those that run on clean, biodiesel hydrogen
internal combustion engines in fuel cell technologies. The other day I
drove a BMW 7 series, it was the Hydrogen ICE, the Hydrogen Internal
Combustion Engine. It was unbelievable. I ran on hydrogen for a while
and then the fellow next to me pushed a button and I was on unleaded
gasoline, high test, seamless, fast, quiet environmentally advanced.

More than 9 million alternative fuel autos are on our roads today,
that's three times more than in the year 2000. Now I admit that 9
million out of 220 million ain't a lot, but we're getting there.

I invite you to take a look at what I'm talking about. When you go to
our website, [www.discoveralternatives.com]{.underline}, you will see
cars that you don't even know are out there and we want you to know and
we also want you to buy.

Every model of automobile is available with some kind of fuel efficient
technology today. That may be fuel injectors, force advanced 4 cylinder
engines, variable valve tithing, continuously variable transmission or
other enhancements of the classic engine.

Automakers today sell more than one hundred vehicles, one hundred models
that achieve more than 30 miles per gallon on the highway according to
EPA estimates. And these include both engine modified and alternative
fuel autos, nearly hundred different models. You have choices.

Why are we doing this? Because automakers want to be part of the
solution, in fact we want to lead others in the solution, the energy
solution, the economic solution, the environmental solution. So
committed are we to alternative fuel autos in renewable fuels, that we
have invested billions of dollars in them. As a matter of fact, I'm
talking globally now.

The auto industry has invested 39 billion dollars a year in research and
development that was in 2005. In this country alone, it was 15 billion
plus. And this is the highest outlay of any other industry, and that
includes pharmaceuticals and computers. A good portion of that outlay is
for alternative fuel autos and renewable fuels. We are getting some high
octane and high profile help in this mission; alternative fuels are the
new frontier of entrepreneurship.

Let me give you some examples. Bill Gates has committed 84 million to
finance construction of five ethanol biorefineries. You heard from Vinod
Khosla yesterday, the founder of Sun Microsystems. As I understand it,
he's financing ethanol fuel research, maybe he talked about this
yesterday, but one of his visions is that orange juice factories will
keep their orange peels out of landfills, by turning them into ethanol

Paul Allen is financing a Seattle company that's trying to turn canola
oil into diesel fuel. Eric Will, an upstate New York dealer of
industrial equipment, bought an old defunct brewery, \-- wants to turn
that into an ethanol plant.

Entrepreneur are putting their minds and money to alternative fuels just
as they have done with computer-based, and now web and wireless
technologies. This indeed is a very exciting and revolutionary time. The
automobile industry in its first one hundred years has never gone
through anything like this. Or perhaps the earliest and most visionary
group that saw the solution in renewable fuels is the farm community.
What an American story of ingenuity. Our farmers have been working on
renewable fuels for more than twenty years.

They were the first to realize that we can grow our own fuels. How's
that for sustainability? Who says we can't be grounded and on the move
at the same time? We in the auto industry salute them. We in the auto
industry need them. As do the automakers I represent, see it, both
renewable and alternative fuel autos get us closer to two goals and
these are citizenship goals.

First, energy freedom. Second, energy security. Energy freedom, what do
I mean? Well, mobility is freedom. When we can go where we want, when we
want, that is energy freedom. As for energy security, that is where
energy freedom and national security intersect, and I don't need to
define that for you.

Can we have it both way, freedom and security? Yes. Our ingenuity will
drive us to achieve whatever energy goals we set.

The free market is driving renewable fuels and alternative fuel autos.
We've already seen great things happen when competition inspires
innovation. Think of vehicle safety. Our vehicles have never been safer,
because safety became awhile back, a competitive issue. A competitive
automobile issue and today, again, our vehicles, our cars, our trucks
have never been safer.

And our automakers are competing, even racing each other to innovate
with energy. Does the safety eventually join automakers to pursue that
common goal? So have renewable fuels. This is the marketplace at work.
We are making inroads into customer and consumer consciousness.
According to a [Wall Street Journal]{.underline} Harris Poll conducted
this year, one-third of U.S. auto buyers are likely to seriously
consider buying an alternative fuel auto for their next vehicle.

The greatest challenge we face is getting that critical mass of
consumers to raise public support and bring down prices. We are asking
people to change their habits and embrace the unfamiliar.

They already know the safety, comfort, reliability and convenience of
the internal combustion engine, we are now trying to win them over with
information and with tax and other incentives like free parking and HOV
lane access to name just a few, so that they will focus on and buy
alternative fuel vehicles.

In fact, Congress passed the 2005 Energy Bill with consumer tax
incentives to increase the number of alternative fuel autos on the road,
and I have to say just as a commercial, by and large, I thought that was
a good bill. By in large, I thought the Administration and Secretary
Bodman did a phenomenal job in getting that bill passed and there's a
lot of good in it. Sure, we'd like to have more in it. We'd like to have
more in the way of production, et cetera, but we got a lot of work to
work with thanks to that bill.

Yes, we are asking consumers to learn a new vocabulary. Words like, as I
mentioned before, Hydrogen ICE, that Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine
and biodiesel, that's because it's a new day. This is an exciting time,
a thrilling time, even for all of the industries working on energy
solutions. The opportunity to pair American and global ingenuity is
unparalleled. This is something we can and should achieve together.

We cannot let our early concerns stop us. If John Kennedy had focused on
the problems of space travel, we'd have never gone to the moon. If
automakers had succumbed to their own skepticism, we probably wouldn't
have the seatbelts that we have, or the airbags or GPS or navigation
systems, et cetera, in our vehicles today.

If critics generally ruled the day, if naysayers generally ruled the
day, we wouldn't have TV(s) we wouldn't have PC(s), we wouldn't have
cell phones and I guess many of us wouldn't have children.

Will it be tough? Yes. There is no nationwide distribution system for
alternative fuels. Again, Jim Woolsey pointed this out. We do have 180
thousand gas stations in this country, but only about; and I think my
count in pretty close to being right, 800 ethanol pumps. We need more. I
am confident we will have them.

There weren't any gas stations in this country one hundred years ago
until this nation's entrepreneurs saw an opportunity and built an
industry on it. And as I said earlier now, we have one hundred and
eighty thousand.

Alternative fuels aren't just about making cars run. They can define
progress in our stewardship of our land and our citizenship on our
planet.

I invite you as interested parties and partners to look at what we've
already achieved, so that we can be strengthen, thanks to having you on
board. Be part of the solution with us. The auto industry's committed.
We need you to be committed too and that includes the oil companies.
Multiple technologies run on multiple fuels.

We are all buffeted by market forces and global trends, but we're all
driving on a common road. Energy problems are global and so too will
their solution be global. We need all hands on deck, government, cross
industry partners and individuals.

At this juncture in the auto industry, I would urge you not to pick
winners and losers when it comes to advanced technologies and
alternative fuel vehicles. We're going to try them all. We're moving in
several directions. Again, we're not looking for winners we're looking
for several solutions. Again, we have hybrids, and E85 and biodiesel,
and clean diesel, and down the road, yes down the road, hydrogen. I'm
not as pessimistic as perhaps Jim Woolsey might be, I think we can make
it happen faster than most, can think.

I invite you as Americans to realize that more choices for both fuels
and autos can reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And after all, that
has to be a major objective. Alternative fuels are the quickest and
smartest ways to reduce gasoline use without having to make wholesale,
lifestyle changes. We can do this. We can keep out basic freedoms of
movement. We can't do it though, if we only focus on one component of
energy for our mobility, namely gasoline.

As humans, we resist anything we think of as loss or change, but,
alternative fuels do not telegraph loss and change. In my opinion and in
the opinion of the great industry that I represent, they signal hope and
progress.

Lastly, I invite you as consumers, to please consider buying an
alternative fuel auto yourself. Once you go green, you will want to be
seen. Thanks a lot.

**CONCLUSION: MR. SWISHER**

Thank you Fred Webber.