George H.W. Bush: “And I agree. I mean, I think farmers are not only environmentalists but conservationists. I think that's very, very…”

“And I agree. I mean, I think farmers are not only environmentalists but conservationists. I think that's very, very important. I think we have to do it. Incidentally, I would like to make a pitch for our energy bill that passed the Congress the other day, which does have some good, sound conservation in it, but also it balances out the need for this country to grow. I don't want to shift the subject away from your question, but in all these fields--and this gets back to this young man's question--in all these fields there's a question of philosophy on a lot of this stuff. On our energy approach, we're trying to keep growth going through more energy sources and through conservation. Some would have you just do nothing on the former part of it, and I'm in a big fight, although it's not in this bill, on the ANWR, the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. I am absolutely convinced that you can have prudent development, as we did in Prudhoe Bay, of that. And yet I'm in a big row with the environmentalists because they say, ``Well, you say you're for the environment; how come you're for ANWR?'' I'm saying ANWR can be developed without decimating the environment or the species there, in this case caribou or whatever else it is. So I just cite this because it is something in my job that you have to keep balancing, just as this guy's question was how do you balance the national security from domestic. Here's one: How do you balance domestic growth, families need to make a living, our hopefully becoming less dependent on foreign oil for a lot of reasons, and balance that with the environmental needs? And you've raised a more specific question. We've just got to keep that ethic going, and I think we can. I think we can do better on it. Getting thrown out of here?”