Jack Kingston: “I wanted to say that while I cannot stand filling up my car at $3 a gallon, like anybody else, there is one good thing…”

“I wanted to say that while I cannot stand filling up my car at $3 a gallon, like anybody else, there is one good thing about it, and that is that there are a lot of people out there thinking, well, what alternatives are there to fossil fuel energy? What other ways can we get fossil fuel out of the ground? What other ways can we buy it from other countries? We do not really like being 58 percent dependent on the Middle East for fossil fuels. So, at $3 a gallon, people have almost daily reminders: What can we come up with? Hydrogen-powered cars such as the type General Motors is working on, and they had it last week at the Capitol. They will be really up and running probably in 5 to 10 years. Very exciting. Ethanol. In Brazil, 40 percent of the cars run on ethanol. In America, only 3 percent do. There are fuel cells, there is even nuclear power. There are all kinds of things, new types of electrical cars that we need to be putting money into. The Republican Congress has put money and tax credits towards research and development so that our universities, our labs, our start- up enterprises can come up with alternative fuel sources, and I am proud that we are moving in the right direction, but we need to do it faster. ____________________”