Joe Barton: “I want to direct the Members' attention to the word that is carved in the cabinet that is right here before us. It…”

“I want to direct the Members' attention to the word that is carved in the cabinet that is right here before us. It cannot be read too well, but it is tolerance. I want to speak a little bit about tolerance, and I want to speak a little bit about facts. Facts are troublesome things but they are facts. The fact is that we use about 100 quads of energy in this country every year. A quad is a quadrillion BTUs. That is a fact. The fact is we produce only about 70 quads. Subtract 70 from 100 and we have a deficit of about 30. Thirty quadrillion BTUs of energy that this Nation is importing. That is a lot of energy. Most of that is in the form of oil, but not all of it. We import electricity. We import natural gas. We import uranium to be refined into enrichment rods for our nuclear power plants. The only thing we do not import in terms of energy is coal. We are a net exporter of coal.”