Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Thanks for your question,
and I also want to thank Mike from Lamar,
who asked a similar question--how do we produce more wind power.
The way we pay for these new tax credits
and the investments in a whole new energy economy
is first and foremost to redirect
all the subsidies and tax-breaks
that go to oil companies today
into these new technologies.
This is a real difference between Congressman Schaffer and myself.
He is an oil and gas executive.
He has worked in the oil and gas industry.
From what I can tell, he wants to
protect the oil and gas industry
to the exclusion of all these
new opportunities that we have.
In fact, I've offered to Congressman Schaffer
the opportunity to join me in a historic energy package.
It's a package that would be based on the Gang of 16 in the Senate,
eight Senators from the Republican party and eight Senators from the Democratic party,
who have come up with a comprehensive approach
with a real emphasis on 100 mile per gallon cars
and much more efficient ways to heat and cool our homes,
as well as an investment in wind and solar and geothermal.
I've worked on this for 12 years,
ever since I was elected to the State Legislature here,
and this is not a pie in the sky.
This is not science fiction, this is real.
It takes leadership, it takes a complete commitment
across America to make this real,
but when we do so we are going to see
just the same thing that has happened here in Colorado,
but on an even larger scale.
We've seen 16 million dollars or more circulate
throughout our economy in rebates and additional investments.
Over a thousand jobs, there is even a new report that suggests
eight thousand jobs as a result of Amendment 37
that I co-chaired with our former Republican speaker of the House, Lola Spradley.
And the point I want to make as I end my answer to the question
is that we can do this together.
Speaker Spradley and I campaigned all over the state.
She's a Republican, I'm a Democrat--but in the end this
is about an American initiative.
This is about triggering a project on the
likes of the level of the Apolo Project or the Manhattan Project.
I'm excited about it, and when we get it underway it will pay for itself
in new jobs created, in greater national security, protecting the environment,
and, finally, in giving enormous opportunity for places like Eastern Colorado
where we have abundant wind and sun.
We are going to plant wind turbines like trees all over Eastern Colorado.
So, If you send me to the Senate,
I'm going to lead on this and we are going to truly become
energy independent in the very near future.
We have no time to waste.