Chris Van Hollen: “Well, that is exactly right. Let us say you had an alcoholic. The last thing you want to do to help that person kick the…”

“Well, that is exactly right. Let us say you had an alcoholic. The last thing you want to do to help that person kick the habit is to provide a subsidy, for example, to the alcohol industry to make more alcohol at different prices. So we have got a real contradiction here between what we now acknowledge should be our national priority, a national priority, and what we are actually doing about it. That is why I think it is very important that we are here today to talk about a new direction, because I do believe that if we want to really help break that addiction and reduce our reliance on oil, we need a large national effort. That is why many of us have joined together to introduce the new Apollo Energy Act, which says we need to harness the great potential of this Nation, the grant entrepreneurial spirit, and make sure that we commit ourselves to this real national effort, in addition to the fact that we need to encourage, not just more renewable energy, but in the immediate short-term we can also encourage greater energy efficiency. We waste an awful lot of energy as a Nation through inefficient use of energy. So the Federal Government has tried and gave us a push to try to encourage States and local jurisdictions, the American people, to find ways to improve energy efficiency. But if you look at the President's budget with respect to energy efficiency efforts, you see dramatic reductions in the budget that he submitted for that purpose.…”