In Philadelphia, Gore proposes an energy trust fund

In a swift campaign stop in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Vice President Al Gore outlined an energy policy designed to save resources and protect the environment before the backdrop of Trigen, a Center City natural gas power plant.

"We will prove, once and for all, that we can clean up pollution, make our power systems more efficient and reliable,and move away from dependence on others -- all with no new taxes, no new bureaucracies and no onerous regulations," Gore said.

"In fact, we will cut taxes to help families and businesses buy the clean technology of the future," the likely Democratic presidential nominee added under the rays of Tuesday's unforgiving heat.

The proposal centers around a new $75 billion Energy Security and Environment Trust, which he said would provide tax breaks for businesses and citizens alike to develop and use environmentally-friendly technology.

"Even the best innovations are of little use if they are stuck in a lab -- unaffordable and unattainable to you, your family or your business," Gore told the approximately 100 Trigen employees and guests assembled at the power plant.

The vice president called the Trigen plant -- which burns fuel at an efficiency level more than twice the national average -- a "seedbed of twentieth century progress."

Squinting into the sun, Gore credited his policy with the ability to make sure future generations aren't left with the disrepair he said comes with environmental disregard.

"Pollution and energy dependence are also a borrowing from future generations," he explained.

Gore also spoke to the "American power of innovation," claiming that environmentally-friendly products are necessary to ensure economic prosperity in the future.

"It's an old, timid way of thinking to say that we have to trade off our economy and our environment; it is a new, bold way of thinking to see that environmental protection can actually fuel economic growth," he said.

But the vice president quickly switched gears, quickly leaving the Trigen plant to speak on social security and health care at the national convention of the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union backing his candidacy.

"The credit for this unprecedented clearly belongs with the American people," Gore said of the economic prosperity his administration has seen.

"We empowered you and let you empower our prosperity," Gore said to approximately 6,000 delegates cheering loudly in support at the Philadelphia Convention Center.

Gore advocated raising the minimum wage and giving parents increased leave time to raise children.

But much of the vice president's speech focused on social security, promising to safeguard the social security trust fund and work against privatization.

"I will fight with every ounce of being against the privatization of social security," he pledged. "Don't take a risk with the foundation of our social security. Keep the trust in the trust fund. Keep the security in social security."

And Gore also touched upon health care, promising to fight for prescription benefits for senior citizens and to ensure all children have health insurance.

"Within four years, every child in America will have health care," he said.

The stops at the Trigen plant and the union conference came as part of Gore's "Prosperity and Progress Tour." Now in its third week, the whirlwind road trip has taken the candidate from city to city across the country to address issues ranging from special education to middle-class tax cuts.

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