Clinton: Clear There's No Desire to Nationalize Banks

Former President Bill Clinton discusses what the government should do to help Americans follow standards of energy efficiency, his views on the economy and more with CNBC's Becky Quick. Following is the full transcript:

BECKY QUICK:

Mr. President, we want to thank you again for joining us today.

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

I'm glad to do it.

BECKY QUICK:

We appreciate your time. And today we've been talking about energy all day long. The conference that you were just attending upstairs, you were there about two hours longer than anyone expected. What was the most interesting thing you heard?

(Watch the accompanying video for the full interview with former President Bill Clinton...)

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

Well, I stayed longer because we had people there who actually were working on doing things all over America in clean energy and energy efficiency—the U.S. Green Building Council, people that help folks build buildings to very high standards and to cut their utility bills, for example. Wal-Mart, one of the country—companies that's done the most to drastically cut its energy use and improve its profitability as a result. And that's important in a tough time like this.

So anyway, I stayed listening. I think the most important thing that I heard was—maybe what Robert Kennedy, Jr., said when he said that when Al Gore, who was also there—Al Gore and I were in office, we helped create millions of jobs in high technology with the telecommunications law. We set a market that then individuals could take advantage of. And he said we had to do that for energy. And I agree with that.

That's why, you know, I think it's very important to give homeowners and business owners incentives to make their businesses and homes as efficient as possible and let them sell electricity back to the electric company if they can produce more than they need. Or let the electric companies finance these energy efficiency—improvements the same way they finance power plants.

BECKY QUICK:

Right.

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

That means that you're not favoring one over the other. That means that no matter how low the price of coal gets or the price of oil or the price of natural gas, it will always be efficient and cost effective to save energy. And it will always create more jobs. So that's what we talked about. It was exciting.

BECKY QUICK:

Is that something that you've seen as we've watched oil prices go from $140 down to below $40?

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

Yes.

BECKY QUICK:

Some of that momentum was lost along the way.

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

But I think some of the momentum was lost in the—particularly in the transportation area. They were—their biofuels didn't look as—economical. But we know that oil has to come back because there are more people on Earth and there's not as much new oil being found. And the demand's going up. So I think—I think the most important thing there is that we try to make sure there is an appropriate tax credit for the production of oil substitutes like electric plug-in vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles.

And then we just keep going 'cause we know where it's going in the end. Where it's going in the end is we're gonna have to be more independent, create more jobs in America, and fight climate change and we'll—we'll be less reliant on imported oil. So that's important. But on the electricity, that's mostly from coal and other sources.

And we're getting more and more wind, more and more solar. Today we talked about the barriers to maximizing our production there. And mostly it's in the distribution. A lot of places where the sun shines and the wind blows there aren't many people. So the wires that are existing out there are not powerful enough to carry the electricity back to where the people are. We talked about that some.

BECKY QUICK:

Yeah, Harry Reid was here with us earlier. And he talked a little bit about the transmission lines. Yeah, he's hoping to get that passed in legislation sometime or introduced in the next few weeks.

(Watch the accompanying video for the full interview with former President Bill Clinton...)

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

Yes, I think he will.

BECKY QUICK:

You think he will. Will there be pushback from the opposition on that?

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know why anybody would be against it. I guess it was the best reason I could think of is that we're doing a lot of things that are very expensive right now. Stimulus package is almost $800 billion. At some point people say we can't afford to spend more money.

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PRESIDENT CLINTON:

Yes. Well, they have allocated some money already for this distribution system. And it's not enough for a whole new grid in America. So what I would recommend they do is to concentrate the money they have on the area with the greatest potential to produce electricity where it's not being produced today from the wind and the sun. Then prove it's economical. Then private investors will come in and help as the economy picks up.

CONTINUED : Clinton on the nation's ballooning deficit...

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