Roscoe Bartlett: “I want to thank my colleague very much for joining us here. Congressman Gilchrest mentioned market forces. They are…”

“I want to thank my colleague very much for joining us here. Congressman Gilchrest mentioned market forces. They are, indeed, very powerful. They have served us very well in this country. They have provided for us the highest quality of life of any place in the world. But market forces are limited. They cannot do what they cannot do. As I noted somewhat humorously, there are even some things that God cannot do. God can't make a square circle, for instance. The market forces are very powerful. As long as there are unlimited forces, market forces will work. I remember mentioning to one of our very high government officials the problem of limited oil supply in the future. The response was, gee, I guess the market will take care of that. I guess when oil gets more expensive, we will use less of it, and then we will find alternatives. That is true. When oil prices get higher, we will use less of it, and we will look for alternatives. But when you look at the potential for exploiting these alternatives, you see that a large amount of time and energy must be invested in these alternatives before they yield any meaningful amount of replacement for the fossil fuels, which are so abundant and so energy rich. Let me give you just one little example of some of the unintended consequences of trying to do this. This is a big push to make ethanol from corn in our country. We have noted that the Brazilians are making ethanol from sugar cane, and they now don't have to import any oil.”