Adam Smith: “First of all, in the investments in alternative energy and conservation programs, the cut in the President's proposed…”

“First of all, in the investments in alternative energy and conservation programs, the cut in the President's proposed budget is 36 percent from what was already a fairly meager amount. It was $373 million last year. It goes down to $237 million in the President's budget. On something that is so important, we can certainly make a better investment and move, hopefully, forward towards finding some of these new technologies and finding that balanced approach. The second thing is I think it is critical to point out that this is not a one-sided problem, either on the conservation, new technology side. We do have a problem in locating plants. We did a bad job over the course of the last 10 years in preparing for what somebody should have seen coming, which was the offset of supply and demand that we currently are experiencing. Part of that problem is what the gentleman said, not knowing what the rules are. It is not a matter of we want to be able to build whatever power plant we want wherever, we just want to know what the rules are so that people can make an intelligent investment decision to build the plant where we want them to build it in the manner in which we want them to build it.”