David Thomas: “later this week I hope we will move on to our energy bill on which all of us have worked for so long, certainly…”

“later this week I hope we will move on to our energy bill on which all of us have worked for so long, certainly recognizing that energy policy is one of the most important issues we will consider this year. Although we have the pressure of other bills-- campaign reform and so on--I hope we move, as was promised, to energy later on this week so that we can move forward. We need this policy out there. The President has put forth a policy. The House has passed a policy. We need to deal with the situation with regard to oil and gas, and of course the opportunity to increase our production domestically so we are not as reliant as we have become on foreign imports. We need to look, obviously, to a balanced bill and different energy sources such as renewables. We need to do more research in terms of coal, and clean coal, and using those resources which we have in abundance. We haven't yet really, it seems to me, defined where we want to go, particularly with the electric component of energy, but I have to tell you that I think it is very important.”