Below is the text of Representative Ed Perlmutter’s (D-CO 7) statement concerning the President’s State of the Union speech.
“Last year at the State of the Union, the President acknowledged that America is addicted to oil. Yet, one week later in his annual budget he immediately fell off the wagon and shortchanged the development of the alternative fuels and technologies needed to make America energy independent.
This year, the President laid out an ambitious plan calling for, among other things, setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels by 2017 and reforming Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards for cars and light trucks.
I support the President’s ideas, and I will work in a bipartisan manner with this new Democratic Congress to push forward on walking the walk and not just talking the talk on these issues this year. But we must do more. We must increase our commitment to the development of all renewable energy technologies and invest in wind and solar power.
Just like when we committed to landing a man on the moon – the only thing holding us back is our own imagination.
This year, the President indicated that his 2008 budget will include nearly $2.7 billion for the Advanced Energy Initiative. I think a significant portion of this funding should come to the crown jewel that holds our best hope on renewable energy, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), which is located in the district that I represent in Colorado. I intend to fight for full support and funding of NREL. This is critical to ending our addiction to oil, and it is critical for our national security, creating new jobs and saving our environment.
On the issue of Iraq, I am disappointed and frankly appalled that this President continues to ignore the advice of his generals and the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group and insist on an escalation in the number of troops we are going to send to Iraq. This is not the kind of change that Americans voted for. This is stay the course with more troops, and this surge is not the answer. I do not support an escalation. I support redeployment of our troops by the Spring of 2008, the transitioning of security to the Iraqi police and the building of a multi-national coalition to begin stabilization.”
