[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11892]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 11892]]

         ARTISTIC HOMES, A WAY TO CONSERVE OUR ENERGY RESOURCES

  (Mrs. WILSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday afternoon I was on the west 
side of Albuquerque at Artistic Homes. Artistic Homes have changed the 
way they build homes in order to reduce utility bills.
  I met a first-time buyer family that is going to buy one of those 
homes. They were signing the papers that day. They currently pay $160 a 
month for their electric and gas bill, and they expect that bill will 
be $20 a month when they move into this new home.
  That experience reinforces why conservation must be a part of our 
energy agenda. We have an energy problem in this country. It is 
toughest in the West, but it affects us all. There are not going to be 
any quick fixes. We need a balanced, long-term approach to give us the 
stability and the energy that we need. This is too important to do 
anything but the right thing.
  We need to start with conservation. We have made tremendous progress 
in this country over the last 20 years. We are not going back, and 
nobody wants to. We need a balanced mix of new supplies of energy, and 
we have to bring on the next generation of new supplies of energy. It 
is time to pull together and lead, to give us real answers for our 
energy problems.

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