Earl Blumenauer: “What Vice President Gore and the Democrats in Congress have been advocating is giving the American public choices. We…”

“What Vice President Gore and the Democrats in Congress have been advocating is giving the American public choices. We right now have 3 or 4 percent of the world's oil reserves. We are consuming currently 25 percent. The gentleman rightly catalogued the efforts on the part of this Congress, Republicans, to stop us from moving forward; cutting back on energy conservation, avoiding opportunities to reinstate and even study the impact of energy efficiency in vehicles across the fleet. As the gentleman points out, it goes in the wrong direction. It is important that we give the American public choices. If the American public had realistic choices two times a week to take mass transit, to car pool, to be able to telecommute, having the opportunity, other than just being in their own car commuting by themselves, we would not have to import any oil. But, again, Governor Bush has no initiatives in this area, and our friends in Congress have been cutting back on solid initiatives that have been advanced in the past. I appreciate the gentleman focusing on this notion of just simply drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. This, of course, is opposed by the overwhelming majority of the American public, even in these times of scarce energy availability.”