Thomas Mott Osborne: “I did not come here to speak about Iraq. I have been there three times and the last time was 3 weeks ago. And each time…”

“I did not come here to speak about Iraq. I have been there three times and the last time was 3 weeks ago. And each time I have been very impressed by the morale and the attitude of our soldiers, and they consistently have asked me to do this. They said, you know, we see two wars. We see the one that is being fought on CNN, and that is true. That is a reality, the bombings. But we also see the war that we are fighting. Would you please occasionally go home and tell people about the good things that are happening in education and health care, economy and so on. And so it is a tough deal. It is tough. And yet there are some good things that are happening. The reason I came over here tonight to speak was about the Fuels Security Act, which has been introduced by the gentlewoman from South Dakota (Ms. Herseth), the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson). As almost everyone in our country is aware, we have really suffered from high fuel prices over the last several months. And this has probably been the greatest drag we could possibly have on our economy at the present time. We are now nearly 60 percent dependent on foreign oil. And OPEC can influence the price of fuel here dramatically by either loosening or tightening their fuel supply. We recently saw that with our negotiations with Saudi Arabia. And so this is a very uncomfortable position for this country to be in. An alternative to foreign oil is ethanol and biodiesel.…”