Angie Craig: “I don't know that all has been said, but most nearly all has been said. Let me speak briefly about the Sununu amendment.…”

“I don't know that all has been said, but most nearly all has been said. Let me speak briefly about the Sununu amendment. If I have heard it once I have heard it a lot of times in the last few years: Oh, we need new technology. We need innovation. We need clean energy. All of those kinds of things are at the threshold of the American consumer's opportunity: Sequestration of carbon, new nuclear technology, biomass, hybrid cars--some of those are beginning to enter the market--coal gasification--here we have a very large part of our energy being supplied by coal; we want to clean it up so we can continue to use it--high, efficient natural gas turbines, hydrogen, and on and on and on. New technologies are wonderful, but sometimes it is very hard to get them started, get them into the marketplace, allow them to be mainstreamed, create the cost effectiveness, the duplication, and multiplying effects that occur in the marketplace. That is why, in working this major piece of energy legislation for our country, we looked at incentives. We also looked at assuring that we protect the American taxpayer, who is also now, because we failed over the last 5 years to develop an energy policy, being taxed at the pump higher than any of these incentives would ever tax them.…”