Political Quotes

“I am reminded as I listen to the gentlewoman speak--I know our whip always likes to quote George Santayana who said that those who don't study their history are doomed to repeat it. We are at the cusp--it has probably already started--of the third great energy transition we have had as a species. The first one was when we transitioned from depending on muscle power to mechanical power. The second was when we transitioned from mechanical power to electric power, and this transition from dirty energy to clean energy. Every one of those transitions has been a massive boon in labor productivity. It takes a lot fewer people to run a steam shovel than it does John Henrys to dig a hole in the ground, and it takes a lot fewer people when you can electrify the country to build all the industries that we have grown accustomed to than it does when you have to live within a pulley's length of the waterwheel. With those opportunities have come all that we think of as great and truly American. We have freed up people's time to invest in whole new ideas and take away the drudgery of work. But the history we have to acknowledge is that every one of those transitions has also been extremely disruptive for the people involved. I like to tell folks back home that only a Luddite would say we never should have invented the steam shovel. But you have to be deeply evil not to empathize with John Henry.…”