Roscoe Bartlett: “I believe this is the 24th time since the 14th day of last March that I have come to this floor to talk about a subject…”

“I believe this is the 24th time since the 14th day of last March that I have come to this floor to talk about a subject which is growing in importance. That subject is energy. I had the privilege of leading a codel to China. We left just after Christmas and we spent New Year's in Shanghai. There were nine of us who went there, and the primary purpose of that congressional delegation was to talk to the Chinese primarily about energy. I was both surprised, shocked, and really pleasantly surprised that they began their conversation about energy by talking about post oil. This just wasn't the energy people in China, it was high officials in other parts of the government. Everywhere we went and spoke with them, they talked about post-oil, a recognition that oil cannot be forever, and they talked about a five-point program. The first point of this program was conservation, a recognition that the world has no surplus energy to invest in developing alternatives.”