Lee Terry: “I think back, somewhat romantically, to when I turned 16, got my driver's license, and my dad let me drive that 1970…”

“I think back, somewhat romantically, to when I turned 16, got my driver's license, and my dad let me drive that 1970 rusted-out brown station wagon to Northwest High School in Omaha, Nebraska. I have a not-so-romantic memory of that 1970 station wagon, waiting in line on Fort Street in a line about two blocks long to get gas, and wondering if those who remember that second oil crisis in the late 1970s, around 1977, if you share this memory too of waiting in lines blocks long to pull up to the gas pump, wondering if when you get up there, there is not going to be that white piece of notebook paper up there saying ``out of gas.'' And gas prices doubled and tripled. Well, since those days in the 1970s, we were about 35 percent dependent on foreign oil; and as we stand here tonight in this Chamber, we are about 58 percent dependent on foreign oil for our energy needs in this country. When we look at those last 20 and 30 years and we see how our economy is growing and has grown, mirrored to that is our energy needs and use in this country. Our energy sector represents 300 billion, a 300 billion piece of the American economy, and it is that that powers America and powers our economy. Now, I remembered or thought back to that oil crisis in the late 1970s, but there are a lot of people that just have to remember back to last year when oil prices reached record highs of $40 per barrel.”