Ron Kind: “I think the overall theme in tonight's discussion is we are looking for 21 century solutions to the challenges we are…”

“I think the overall theme in tonight's discussion is we are looking for 21 century solutions to the challenges we are facing in this century and not a throw-back plan that would be better suited for the 19th century or the first part of the 20th century. In fact, what was striking about the Bush administration's energy plan that came out last week was how similar it was to the plan that was actually proposed under the Reagan administration. In fact, former Interior Secretary James Watt was recently quoted in the Denver Post in regards to the similarity of the plans they were pursuing back in the early 1980s compared to what the new administration is talking about today in 2001. This is what former Secretary of the Interior James Watt had to say, and I quote: ``Everything Cheney is saying, everything the President is saying, they are saying exactly what we were saying 20 years ago, precisely. Twenty years later, it sounds like they have just dusted off the old work.''”