Political Quotes

“I just want to come back to the point you talked about in terms of ethanol, wind, solar. It could be anything. Anytime that you take a new energy to commercial level, commercialize it, but you do it artificially, you do it with subsidies, you use taxpayer dollars to sustain it in the market, that's just wrong. And it's not real. If something is ready for prime time, if it is ready to be commercialized, it will stand on its own. It will create a market that people want to come and buy it and use it. So as we look forward to an energy policy, I think we need to be very careful about what we artificially commercialize, what we subsidize. Natural gas is real. Oil is real. Both of them will stand on their own. It doesn't need subsidies in order to provide energy for folks. It will do it in a way that is market proven. But there are other markets out there--and you've named a couple of them--that if we take away those subsidies today, they would collapse. They wouldn't exist. So, frankly, I think that's a disservice to the American taxpayers. Why are we commercializing energy resources? You know, I do believe in research; and that's where our focus should be, as opposed to prematurely commercializing something that doesn't stand on its own. I have a lot of appreciation for the national energy labs in this country. They are scientists. They don't have an agenda. They are just looking for that new energy source, and they are very credible in what they do.…”