US:President George Bush was last night set to call on Americans to cut their petrol consumption by one-fifth within the next 10 years, promising new measures to increase sharply the use of alternative fuels.
White House officials said Mr Bush would use his first State of the Union address before a Democratic-controlled Congress to focus on domestic issues, including energy, healthcare and immigration reform.
The president was also set to defend his plan to send more troops to Iraq and to call on legislators to vote against resolutions condemning the troop surge. Senior Republicans have joined with Democrats in opposing the plan and House Republican leader John Boehner wants the president to report to Congress every 30 days on progress in Iraq.
Mr Bush wants Congress to approve an immigration reform that would allow most of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants to remain in the US and eventually apply for American citizenship. The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, which campaigns on behalf of undocumented Irish citizens in the US, will hold a rally next week in San Francisco, home of House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Under the White House energy plan, at least 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels would have to be blended annually with petrol by 2017. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that 7.5 billion gallons of alternative fuels must be blended yearly with petrol by 2012. The president will also call for more domestic oil production and a doubling in the size of the nation's strategic petroleum reserve to 1.5 billion gallons by 2027.
Mr Bush was due to address the issue of global warming but to stop short of endorsing a call by a coalition of big corporations and environmentalists for a mandatory, nationwide cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
The president is proposing to change how the tax code treats health insurance, by counting employer contributions toward health insurance as taxable income while establishing a standard deduction for anyone with insurance.
Democrats have already dismissed the proposal and Pete Stark, chairman of a key health subcommittee in the House, said he would not even consider holding hearings on what he described as a dead-on-arrival attempt to encourage employers to stop offering health insurance.
"You can assume a lot of people are going to do the old 'it's dead on arrival'. It's not. This is a proposal that's going to make healthcare cheaper for 100 million Americans or more," said White House press secretary Tony Snow.
Newly elected Virginia senator Jim Webb, a Vietnam war veteran and opponent of the Iraq war, was scheduled to give the Democratic response to the president's speech. Mr Webb, whose son is serving in Iraq, said it was clear Mr Bush had nothing new to offer on the war. "They don't have a plan. What they have put on the table is more a tactical adjustment," he said.