Angie Craig: “for the last number of minutes I have listened with great interest to the comments of my good friend from Alaska…”

“for the last number of minutes I have listened with great interest to the comments of my good friend from Alaska describing the energy crisis in which our Nation now finds itself. I use the word ``crisis'' with some reservation because my guess is most Americans don't think we are in a crisis. They have good jobs, they probably got raises this year, they feel their jobs are secure, they have plenty of spendable income, and while they may be paying 30 or 40 cents or even 50 cents a gallon more for gas this year than last year, at least the gas is still there and the pump does not say ``no fuel available,'' they don't sense a crisis. I traveled home to my State of Idaho this weekend. I drove in out to Dulles Airport. I got on a Boeing 777 that burns tens of thousands of gallons of fuel in the course of a day and I paid $70 or $80 more for each one of my tickets because of the cost of jet fuel. As I traveled across the country I found the airports full, of Americans and foreign travelers. Yet no sense of urgency or crisis did they appear to feel.”