David Thomas: “I will make a few remarks this morning in our remaining time regarding one of the issues before us. We, of course, have…”

“I will make a few remarks this morning in our remaining time regarding one of the issues before us. We, of course, have spent a good deal of time on emergencies over the last number of months, and properly so. We have had emergencies. Obviously, the most compelling one has been terrorism and homeland defense. In addition to that, we have talked about a number of other things. We have had fires; agriculture, which we felt is something of an emergency; as well as health care, which the Senator from Washington talked about. Indeed, most legislation that comes up is sort of deemed an emergency, at least in the view of the sponsor. There is one thing which I think pretty clearly should be one of the most important, something that will affect us over time and one that we can avoid, which is the energy problem in our country. Probably nothing touches more Americans than energy, whether it be electric energy or gasoline for one's automobile. Finally, after a considerable amount of effort in both Houses, we do have an energy bill that has passed both Houses.”