Quotes of the Morning: Plugging Into the Decider

“I give up. I wanted to talk about the State of the Union, but it just wasn’t that fun. It was a professional speech and lacked that off-the-cuff manner for which Fearless Leader is so well known. Luckily yesterday he followed it up by speaking to DuPont.”
-Skippy

“One, dependence on oil provides an economic and national security risk, a problem that this country better start dealing with in a serious fashion now, before it becomes acute. And second, we've got to be wise stewards of the environment, and dependency on oil makes it harder to be wise stewards of the environment.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Please remember this point: We need to have energy independence in order to help the environment. Oh, and that dependence on oil is a national security risk. By Fearless Leader’s logic that means he doesn’t need to listen to Congress about energy because the President’s job automatically allows him to do what he needs to do to fight national security risks.”
-Skippy

“Secondly, if you're dependent on oil overseas, it means that -- and a hostile regime, a regime hostile to the United States produces that oil, you become vulnerable to the activity of a hostile regime. In other words, somebody doesn't like us, they produce the oil, they decide to do something about it, they can affect us. That's -- when I talk about the national security risks, that's what I mean. In other words, you don't want your President sitting in the Oval Office worried about the activities of a hostile regime that could have all kinds of impacts on our security, starting with economic security.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Yes. Energy dependence = terrorism, and my biggest concern is that I don’t want Fearless Leader to sit around worrying.”
-Skippy

“Dependence on oil, as well, means that if a terrorist were able to destroy infrastructure somewhere else in the world, it's going to affect what you pay for at the gasoline pump. In other words, as we learned, the terrorists attacked us in brutal ways; they attacked us by flying airplanes into our buildings.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Yes! They could destroy a pipeline, and that would raise the price of gasoline. I’m terrified already. Exactly like 9/11.”
-Skippy

“Let me just share a couple of things that we're doing. One, we're spending a lot of your money on clean coal technology. The reason why is we've got a lot of coal.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Clean coal technology.. Because energy independence is needed to help the environment, and nothing is better for the environment than coal mining.”
-Skippy

“Just a couple of things that are happening that are interesting: One, we began a hydrogen initiative that -- where a lot of smart folks are beginning to research whether or not we can power automobiles by hydrogen. We think it's possible. But it's not going to be possible until I'm 75, which is probably 15 years from now.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“He isn’t sure?”
-Skippy

“However, there is a constraint, and that is, the ethanol use today comes from corn, and we've got hog growers and chicken growers that need corn to feed their animals. And therefore, it's going to be kind of a strain, at some point in time, on the capacity for us to have enough ethanol to be able to make us less dependent on oil. So what you're doing at DuPont becomes vital, and that is cellulosic research.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Yep, asking a chemical company to develop more intensive fertilizers and pesticides to help us mass-produce more corn is what we can do to help the environment.”
-Skippy

“And we need to be thankful as a nation for companies like DuPont who are spending shareholders' money to make sure this country becomes less dependent on oil and better stewards of the environment.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Thank God for shareholders. They’re kind of like little angels. I am happy that we can give them grants to do this research, because they would probably go broke doing good deeds like this otherwise.”
-Skippy

“As I said, I do believe, strongly believe, there's a role for government; one, spending money directly.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Yes. I believe that.”
-Skippy

“I mentioned $2.7 billion for our '08 request from Congress -- monies which, by the way, get joint-ventured with initiatives, for example, that take place here in DuPont.
Secondly, I strongly believe that -- and, by the way, in the farm bill, request in the farm bill, we're going to put $1.6 billion over 10 years to continue this kind of research, as well. But I also strongly believe in the research and development tax credit. I believe the tax code should provide incentives. And one incentive that makes a lot of sense for this country is to incent you to continue to invest your money on research and development. “
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Yep, we’re going to give a ton of money to major corporations like DuPont so that they can develop new chemicals that they can patent and make money from. If we didn’t give them all this money they would probably never even try to do new research. We have to help our MegaCorporations. If we don’t then the terrorists have already won.”
-Skippy

“Something that the American people don't know about is that during my administration, we changed the CAFE standard for trucks. And basically, we said we're going to take the weight of each type of truck and set a fuel standard specific to weight. It's a little hard to explain, except for it has achieved a lot of conservation efficiencies. We need to do the same thing for cars.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Yep, the larger, heavier vehicles have a lower standard and the smaller, lighter ones have a higher standard. And that is good for conservation. I’m following you.”
-Skippy

“If you have an overall fleet CAFE standard, what ends up happening is, is that the bigger cars have lower gas mileages than they could otherwise, and the little cars have high gas mileages, which reduces the safety in the automobiles. And so we believe that if you make -- set CAFE standards based upon weight, it will help meet consumer demand and makes better science. As a matter of fact, this is an idea we got from the National Academy of Science.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Um.. I thought that this was good a minute ago? Aren’t bigger cars heavier cars? And smaller ones are lighter? Wouldn’t basing the efficiency on weight the same as basing it on size for the most part? I’m not sure I’m following this. He seems to be saying that what he has done is bad.”
-Skippy

“And if a terrorist threat -- if terrorism is a threat to the supply of -- our energy supply, then I believe it makes sense to address that terrorist threat by doubling the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, so that, rather than 750 million gallons of crude oil in storage in case there's a disruption based upon a terrorist threat, there's a billion-five. In other words, if we're saying dependence on oil creates a terrorist threat, let's do something about it now.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January 25, 2007

“Remember.. A terrorist threat is a threat to our energy supply, and the only way we can combat that is to buy lots and lots of gasoline right now (driving the cost up) from the very nations that are currently backing insurgent factions in the Middle East. And the increased price at the pump we will pay because of you inflating the demand for oil is different from the whole ‘terrorist blows up a pipeline’ kind of price increases we were so worried about earlier. Bravo sir, bravo.”
-Skippy