Austin Scott: “This is definitely a major, major priority as far as the future of this country is concerned. Our energy policy is…”

“This is definitely a major, major priority as far as the future of this country is concerned. Our energy policy is interwoven directly into our vital national security. There is no question about it. We have, for the past 50 years, progressively gotten more and more dependent on oil from the Middle East. There is a reason why Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, those Middle Eastern countries are so vital. It is so important for us to try to hopefully find a way in which we can get peace in that region. We don't know the answer to all of this; it is largely going to be up to those Middle Eastern countries. But we are so directly tied to the future stability of that region, largely because of one thing, that is, our energy. And that has been a mistake, that we are tied to our future energy needs to the most unstable region in the world. And we now need to move very rapidly to excise ourselves from that. The other reason why our energy policy is so vital and so important, and again, part and parcel of our national security, is because of global warming.”