Sam Farr: “It certainly does not demonstrate leadership. There is no way anyone can take the United States position and argue that…”

“It certainly does not demonstrate leadership. There is no way anyone can take the United States position and argue that we are a leader in this field. I think we have been a leader in bringing about the consciousness of global pollution and admitting that we are, as tremendous consumers of our material goods, leading the world in pollution. And we have been a leader in recognizing that we have to do something about it, but that has always been initiated more by local communities and States. There has been sort of an attitude in America that you think globally and act locally. And certainly that has been the response coming out of the West, and I think out of my colleague's State of Maine as well. The frustration that I have experienced in my political life has been that without leadership we do not get commitment of research dollars, of essentially those key dollars or those lending programs through international banks. Attention was brought to me by a constituent who actually worked out the technology with a lot of firms, none of which were American companies, on how we could reduce all oil dependence on all the islands around the world. All of the islands do not produce oil, so they have to ship it in. It is very costly. Yet they are surrounded by two things; they are surrounded by sun and they are surrounded by saltwater.…”