Karen Thurman: “I kind of knew this was going to happen, but I still think this is a very important part of the debate that is going on…”

“I kind of knew this was going to happen, but I still think this is a very important part of the debate that is going on today. It seems that we are talking about a lot of issues that are not coming before this House that, quite frankly, probably could give us an energy policy that we would all be proud to be going home with. We all know that we are talking about issues that are affecting our constituency every day. It is just obnoxious and absurd that we are seeing folks having to pay $2, and many of these folks just cannot do it. Many of them live in rural areas, they cannot get to work, and they cannot afford that $2. It is costing them everything they have. Our seniors are trying to get around and they cannot afford it either. However, I think even within that, since we are going to talk about energy today, that we would be remiss if we did not bring into this debate energy efficiency and renewable energy assistance. For several years now, we have had a bipartisan caucus, an Energy Renewable Caucus here in this Congress, that has continued to look at ways to increase our funding for research. But on top of that, we also have a piece of legislation, H.R. 2380, which is the Energy Efficient Technology Tax Act. I have to tell my colleagues that I think as we go through this and we look at the fact of being able to develop low carbon energy sources, that if we as the Congress could actually give incentives for this, it would be a marvelous thing for us to do.”