[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 41 (Monday, March 9, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3091-H3092]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ENERGY INSECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. INGLIS. Madam Speaker, I have been doing this series on our 
energy insecurity problem and opportunity. And it clearly is that. It's 
both a danger and an opportunity. Our energy insecurity, the fact that 
we are dependent on foreign nations for our transportation

[[Page H3092]]

fuels and the fact that we really don't have a great plan at this point 
about how to produce electricity. So we've got this energy insecurity 
and we've got a danger there, but we have also got an incredible 
opportunity.
  But speaking especially to fellow conservatives, I wonder if our 
conservative environmental policy is being controlled by former Vice 
President Al Gore. You know, it's said that he who angers you controls 
you. So I wonder if the fact that when we hear ``climate change,'' we 
see Al Gore and we get angry; it makes him actually the one that's 
controlling our view of climate change. Wouldn't it be something if we 
conservatives were actually under the control of Al Gore because he 
angers us so much that we can't see past him and some claims he makes 
about climate change? Some conservatives think that's a bunch of hooey. 
But if we can't see past that to the job creation opportunity and to 
the national security risk, then is he really controlling us?
  So what I'd like to ask, especially fellow conservatives, to consider 
is, is that really where we want to be? Do we really want to be 
controlled by a former Vice President, or do we want to see the 
opportunity, job creation opportunity, and the incredible national 
security danger, and then move to act to solve it?
  Of course, I think that the solution that conservatives bring is an 
understanding of markets and how economics work, and how it is that 
people making profit will actually solve this energy insecurity 
problem.
  So try this out for size: If I'm making Inglis widgets at my factory, 
and I'm belching and burning and basically dumping ash on my neighbor's 
property, it's a pretty good deal for me. It stinks for my neighbor. 
Now, under Biblical law my neighbor would have a cause of action 
against me. Under English common law, under American common law, and by 
virtue of EPA and regulations, my neighbor would have a cause of action 
against me or a regulatory regime to help him out.
  Now, if I'm heard to complain to the local congressman, no, now, 
listen, you can't make me put scrubbers on my smokestack because that 
will drive up the price of my widgets. Inglis widgets will go up in 
price, and that will make it so that the customer is hurt. Well, will 
it? Or will it actually create the opportunity for another entrepreneur 
across town who is ready to compete with me and take me out because 
he's got a cleaner process, a smaller smokestack, if you will? So if 
society wants to move along to that better product that my competitor 
is offering across town, then what we have to do is figure out a way to 
make me keep my ash on my property. If you do that, it's called 
internalizing the externals. It's something that we conservatives can 
understand. It's a market distortion that we have got to fix. If we fix 
it, then my incumbent technology, the cheaper widgets because I get to 
dump ash on my neighbor's property, suddenly becomes more expensive, 
and the competing technology now takes me out.
  That's where we are with gasoline, for example. The reason the 
gasoline is so cheap, and it is so cheap, is there are all these 
negative externalities that aren't recognized by the market: the 
national security risk, the climate change risk, the environmental 
problems associated with it. If you stuck those onto the product of 
gasoline and said, now, gasoline, compete with plug-in hybrids, 
suddenly plug-in hybrids would be popping up everywhere because the 
competition would be able to take out the incumbent technology.
  I think that's an inherently conservative idea. I think it's 
understanding how markets work, how economics work, and how profit can 
solve this energy insecurity. Because if we get to the place where that 
competing technology can take out the incumbent technology, we will 
break this addiction to oil, and we will improve the national security 
of the United States, and we will create jobs, because those new 
technologies have a lot of jobs in them.
  So even if you think that climate change is a bunch of hooey, there 
are two other reasons to pursue it that are equally valid and very 
exciting opportunities to fix this energy insecurity that we face, and 
that I look forward to talking with you again about.
  My colleagues, this is an opportunity for us to work together to 
build consensus, to collaborate as Republicans and Democrats. We can 
fix this problem.

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