President’s State of the Union energy initiatives are “a start”

Washington, DC – “I’m really glad the President included a commitment to reduce oil imports from the Middle East 75% by 2025,” said Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who has championed changes in U.S. energy policy. “However, without a national commitment with the breadth of the Apollo program to land a man on the moon and the intensity of the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb, there’s no way we will achieve the President’s goal. The Advanced Energy Initiative is a start. The increases in basic science research and development are also welcome contributions. However, they don’t come close to what’s needed.”

“Two words missing from the State of the Union were conservation and efficiency,” noted Congressman Bartlett. “U.S. oil production peaked in 1970. Despite price increases, government incentives for drilling, and advances in technology for exploration and drilling, U.S. oil production has continued to decline. ANWR and more off-shore drilling could only slow, not reverse this decline. We can reduce oil imports by reducing our use of oil and developing renewable and other alternative sources of energy. Unless we do both, it probably won’t be possible to break America’s addiction to oil and reduce the trend of increasing dependence upon oil imports from the Middle East.”