Political Quotes

“for 2 weeks we have debated the comprehensive energy policy we should have for this country. Most Members and most Americans agree we need to do two basic things: One, we need to create more energy; two, we need to conserve more energy. Throughout the legislation we are debating, there are a variety of ways we will create more energy: make natural gas more readily accessible from northern Alaska; create renewable energy; more solar, wind, geothermal; interesting exploitation of biomass, biofuels, soy diesel, among others. On the conservation side, we are not doing so well. On the conservation side, we need to do a whole lot better. The Senator from Massachusetts has alluded to how much oil we consume. We consume a whole lot, given the size and population of our country, compared to the rest of the world. Our oil imports account for roughly 60 percent of the oil we consume. That is up from 30 percent when I came back to the United States at the end of the Vietnam war. By the mid-1970s, we did not have much of a trade deficit. Today we have a trade deficit of $300 billion a year. A good deal of that is oil. Roughly a little more than half of the oil we consume, we consume with cars, trucks, and vans we drive. To pass from the Senate and send to conference with the House energy legislation that does not make meaningful, measurable steps toward reducing the amount of oil we use for our cars, trucks, and vans is shortsighted and a mistake.”