State of Illinois secondary Archives: on Energy & Oil

Alexi Giannoulias: Clean energy future for national security & job creation

GIANNOULIAS: There was an omnibus spending bill which had thousands of earmarks, a ton of pork; I would have voted against it. I think President Obama should have vetoed it.

Q: I'm talking about going forward, though.

GIANNOULIAS: Going forward, I think we need to do everything we can to create a sense of urgency when it comes to a clean energy future. I think it's a priority not just from a moral perspective, but from a national security, from a global competitiveness, and from a job creation standpoint. And we need to do everything we can to incentivize the private sector again to start hiring. That means tax cuts. That means making it a better business environment. That means increasing access to capital. There is a bill that would provide $30 billion to community banks. $12 billion in tax breaks to middle to small business. This is something that Congressman Kirk voted against.

Barack Obama: Conserve, develop alternative fuels, increase efficiencies

KEYES: We need to develop proper alternative fuels. We need to develop ethanol. We need to push on the research, where breakthroughs are occurring, to get hydrogen from ethanol. By pushing on that kind of research we’ll be able to have a win for our farmers, in the agricultural sector, to improve the profitability of their product. We’ll be able to have a win on the environment, because hydrogen, for instance, is more clean-burning.

OBAMA: We could save as much, in terms of our fuel, if we increased our fuel efficiency standards, as much as we would from getting Alaska drilling going immediately. And that’s been the Bush strategy increasing production for oil and gas companies, subsidizing them to the tune of 20 billion dollars, as opposed to thinking about how, not only, we can develop alternative fuels, but also how can we conserve energy and increase efficiencies available right now but have not been invested in.