Roscoe Bartlett: “in the last year and a half I have come here to the well of the House a number of times to talk about subjects ranging…”

“in the last year and a half I have come here to the well of the House a number of times to talk about subjects ranging from embryonic stem cells and the challenge of deriving these cells ethically so that we might hopefully enjoy the great potential medical benefits. I have come here to talk about electromagnetic pulse, a very interesting consequence of the detonation of a nuclear weapon above the atmosphere that produces a surge which is very much like a lightning strike everywhere all at once or an enormously enhanced solar storm. And I have come here I think maybe as many as 18 times in the last year and a half to talk about a problem which we as a country and we as a world face, and that is the peaking of oil. We are shortly, I believe, if we haven't already, going to reach the maximum production rate of oil in the world, and then the world will need to deal with how we substitute renewables. But tonight I come to the floor to talk about something that could very easily become a victim, a casualty of the tyranny of the urgent. All of us are familiar with this phenomenon in our personal lives, in our professional lives; it is true for our country that very frequently the urgent pushes the important off the table. Things you have got to deal with today frequently push things off until tomorrow that you might wait until tomorrow to address. I want to spend a few moments this evening talking about something that concerns me.…”