John Hall: “I support the Invest in Energy Independence Act and am doing my best to convince more Members of this body on both sides…”

“I support the Invest in Energy Independence Act and am doing my best to convince more Members of this body on both sides of the aisle to support it. I believe that it will help to ease market tensions. It will help to keep the price of gasoline from rising too much higher and hopefully eventually to bring it back to more affordable levels by providing competition with other kinds of fuels and other kinds of energy. And when that day arrives, Mr. Lampson, when that day arrives that we can tell the Saudis or the Russians or whichever country it is that's shipping imported oil into this country 'No thank you, you can turn your tanker around and send it somewhere else,' that day a big weight will lift off the shoulders of America, off the American public. And I believe it will be a moment similar to the day when we first landed on moon. Because I was a kid when Sputnik was launched, and I remember the feeling of this thing. It was beeping overhead, that the Russians had gotten to it first. And it didn't really do anything other than beep. But the fact it was there above us was symbolic of, we thought and we probably were right, a technological breakthrough that another country had made that put them for the time being ahead of us in that field. And I believe that we can't afford to let Japan or China or any other country get more of a lead in energy than the one that exists now.”