WASHINGTON – President Bush announced today that Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Herb Dhaliwal will co-chair a joint U.S.-Canadian task force to investigate the causes of Thursday’s power outage and to identify ways to prevent a recurrence.

"Minister Dhaliwal and I will start working immediately to find out what caused this massive blackout and to keep it from happening it again," Secretary Abraham said. "Reliable electric power is the lifeblood of the economy for both our countries. And it’s more than just a personal convenience – it’s essential to the health and safety of our citizens."

The two leaders have already begun conferring and plan to meet in the near future.

"More than 50 million people in two nations suddenly lost electricity in this blackout," said Abraham. "It put many people in potential personal danger, it cost the U.S. and Canadian economies millions of dollars, and it inconvenienced everyone. We owe our citizens an explanation of this incident and an assurance that steps will be taken to address the cause."

Following is the White House announcement regarding the joint task force.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release August 15, 2003

STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY

The United States and Canada have today agreed to form a joint task force to identify the causes of the recent power outage that affected North America and to seek solutions to help prevent future outages. The Task Force will be jointly chaired by United States Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Herb Dhaliwal. Federal, state, provincial, and local authorities, as well as private sector electricity providers, will be invited to contribute to the work of the Task Force.

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