Vernon Ehlers: “I am pleased to rise tonight with several of my colleagues to discuss an issue of great importance to our Nation, and I…”

“I am pleased to rise tonight with several of my colleagues to discuss an issue of great importance to our Nation, and I know that everyone that gets up here starts the same way, but this is a particularly important issue, one that the three of us wish to discuss as scientists, or those who have a great interest in science. Tonight's topic is going to be energy. You have heard a lot about energy recently, worried about the gas prices, worried about the energy policy bill that we have worked on in the House and the Senate is now studying. Energy is extremely important, but what is most important to me when we are talking about energy or any other issue is to talk about the long-term effects because that is what the people hire us for. They elect us to come here and discuss and debate the future of this Nation, and it is very easy to forget that because we are always caught up in the instantaneous things we do, the stuff we have to get done today; but the people of this land, struggling every day to make a living, keep ends together, do not have the time to do the long-range thinking. Corporate leaders are bound by their requirement to produce profits every quarter, to get the stock price up. It is up to us to really think about where this Nation is going and what is really important and what is likely to happen to it.…”