Madam President, I say to our colleagues that I stand before you today as a Vietnam veteran--5 years of naval service during the hot war in Southeast Asia, trying to make sure that the force of communism was stopped. I served another 18 years beyond that, right to the end of the Cold War, as a naval flight officer and retired as a Navy captain. I am not a socialist. I am somebody who cares deeply about this planet. I am someone who believes it is possible to have clean air, clean water, better public health, and to foster economic growth. As it turns out, there are a lot of companies in this country that believe the same thing. They believe the same thing. A lot of them build cars, trucks, and vans. They want a 50-State deal on fuel efficiency standards, CAFE standards, and tailpipe standards. They want a 50-State deal so they don't have to build a car for 13 or 14 different States and then a different kind of car or truck for the rest of the country. They don't want to do that. They want certainty and predictability so they can build one model for one car. They want to be able to be successful in competing in the world marketplace in the next 10, 20, or 30 years. We need someone leading the Environmental Protection Agency who believes that it is possible to have cleaner air and, frankly, to foster economic growth in the auto companies. That is what the auto companies want. They are not socialists. They are free-marketers.…
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