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Chris Dodd: The New American Prosperity

The New American Prosperity: Innovation and Energy Independence in the 21st Century

By Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT)

Click here to watch Sen. Dodd's speech. [QuickTime required]

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here at the Center for National Policy this afternoon, and I want to thank my good friend Tim Roemer for inviting me today.

For more than a quarter-century, the Center has offered leadership on countless issues facing us as a nation and as a world leader — from the need for bold engagement abroad, to uniting the world against terrorism and nuclear proliferation, to ensuring first responders here at home have the resources they need to keep Americans safe.

And so, I thank you for your leadership and for this opportunity.

As someone who has been involved in nearly every major foreign policy decision for the last 25 years, I recognize a lot of faces here today — men and women who care deeply about America’s role in the world.

I do as well. My father was a leading prosecutor for the United States at the trial of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg, which in many ways established America’s high standard of moral authority in the world.

I come before you as a Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States because whether the issue is Iraq, health care, or education, never in my lifetime has there been an election with more at stake for our country.

Today, I want to discuss an issue that goes straight to the heart of America’s national security and economy, our ingenuity and leadership in the world, and our uniquely American optimism as a people.

Energy an issue with so many implications that with the right leadership it not only has the potential to create a new generation of middle class prosperity, but to transform the world in which we live.

Allow me to explain.

So often today, we are reminded of the challenges we face as a country.

From the terrible images on the TV everyday out of Iraq to the skyrocketing price of gas—from rising temperatures across the globe to a sense our country is more divided than ever before—our challenges may be interconnected, but too often they seem out of our control and impossible to overcome.

As a result, there’s a real sense of insecurity in the country today.

Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing — people wanting to know if we understand the challenges they face. If we know them.

Do you know what it’s like to worry about rising energy costs? Do you know that pang of fear when we get when we receive a $400 heating bill we weren’t expecting?

Do you know what it’s like as a parent to read about global warming’s connection to asthma rates having increased four-fold since 1980?

Do you what it feels like to grow up in a country that’s falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to innovation and competitiveness?

The message is the same. While energy demands are expected to double in the next 50 years, scientists tell us greenhouse gases need to be reduced by 80 percent — families get a sense that however prosperous we are, our future is not for us to decide.

I could not disagree more. With the right leadership, America can lead again, as it has in the past. With the right leadership, America can unleash the remarkable potential in our people, young and old, to achieve things previous generations couldn’t possibly imagine.

I don’t need to convince anyone that global warming is real and of great consequence to our planet and our futures. When everyone from Al Gore to President Bush is acknowledging its effects, when the ten warmest years on record have all been since 1990, you know that debate has been put to rest.

I don’t need to convince you America’s security is at risk because of our dependence on Middle East oil not when we are fighting terrorist organizations with one hand and financing their supporters with the other to the tune of $300 billion annually.

And I don’t need to convince you that our economy cannot sustain rising energy costs — not when you see them at every street corner on your way to work and at the end of each month when you pay your electric bill.

Rather, I’m here to tell you what is possible when we act on these challenges. America can accomplish anything, when we put our minds to it.

Our dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels is one of our biggest problems — a problem that impacts our health, our environment, our national security, our competitiveness.

But breaking that dependence is our single greatest opportunity — for a brighter, greener, healthier, more prosperous and secure future. For a world more independent than the one our parents gave us.

A future where America’s security depends not on the most politically fragile corner of the globe, but on the freedoms unleashed by the ingenuity of our small businesses and university laboratories.

A future where American wealth perpetuates not tyranny and hate, but the values of America’s Heartland.

A future where energy isn’t an obstacle to generating economic growth — but the very foundation for a new era of prosperity.

I’m running for President because I know that future is possible.

Forty-six years ago, I heard President Kennedy’s call for Americans to be a part of something larger than themselves. I joined the Peace Corps and lived for two years in Latin America, where I helped build a school and a maternity clinic, became fluent in Spanish, and saw what people could achieve when America leads.

When Americans lead.

With a leader who can bring people together and inspire them, we can solve our energy crisis. We can make historic investments in clean energy technologies and draw upon the purchasing power of the Federal government to affordably bring the greenest technologies and vehicles to market.

We can lead consumers and business away from polluting energy sources at the same time we lead America and the world toward energy independence.

In doing all this, we can immediately begin to reverse the effects of global warming and free ourselves of Middle East Oil. We can lead abroad and unleash an era of unprecedented opportunity and job creation in our economy here at home.

We can create a New American Prosperity.

Accomplishing all this is within our grasp, but it will take a president who will challenge our country to get there together. As president, I will ask every American from every part of the country to play a role in creating that world. Everyone contributes, everyone benefits.

For me, this journey toward a new American prosperity starts where so many others have on our nation’s farms.

As president, I will charge our farms with developing clean-burning biofuels. Instead of paying our farmers to grow fewer crops, we’ll be helping them grow the crops we need to not only eat, but to produce cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel, as well as bio-based products that reduce our use of petrochemicals.

With powerful incentives such as making the Production Tax Credit permanent for clean and renewable energy technologies, I will charge our entrepreneurs and scientists with bringing those technologies to market and making us more energy efficient.

It’s time we had a president that understands our greatest, untapped source of energy lies not in oil wells or coal mines but in small businesses, farms and laboratories, developing technologies that make America leaner, greener and more efficient.

Some solutions seem so simple you wonder why the President doesn’t mention them in every State of the Union. If every American replaced a single light-bulb, a single light- bulb, with one that’s energy efficient; it would be the equivalent of eliminating all emissions from 2 million cars.

A Dodd Administration will lead by example — and it won’t just be light bulbs that are energy efficient. Every building old and new in the Federal government will draw upon the latest energy efficiency technologies, as will every vehicle in its fleet. Every one.

As president, I will increase car mileage standards to 50 miles-per-gallon and increase the number of hybrids on the market — not to punish America’s beleaguered automakers, but to save them, making them competitive.

That starts with providing tax breaks and rebates so that if you can afford a car, you can afford a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid or any other fuel-efficient vehicle. In a Dodd Administration, being wealthy will not be a prerequisite to being green.

When it comes to investments in clean energy, never again will our President say one thing in the State of the Union and submit a budget a few weeks later that says something else. We will put our money where our mouth is.

But leading isn’t just about making the right investments. It’s also about making the tough choices.

Whatever sacrifices we make tomorrow pale in comparison to those we face today, when we accept the status quo of rising energy prices, of dependency on the Middle East and of global warming that threatens all our futures.

The truth is, we can make all the clean energy investments in the world, but we will never be able to rid ourselves of fossil fuel energy sources when they remain the cheapest option.

It’s true that some corporations have at last begun to clean up their act — some because they want to stay competitive, others because they want to be better stewards of our environment. Indeed, I was an early supporter of the toughest “cap and trade” bill ever introduced in the United States

Congress because I believe capping carbon emissions is a critical step in the right direction.

But we all know no matter how tough the rules, some big polluting companies will always be able to buy their way out from under them.

That is why, as president, I will not only expand cap and trade, I will go further — I will enact a Corporate Carbon Tax.

You cannot be serious about acting on the urgent threat of global warming, about making us less captive to Middle East Oil, or investing in renewable energy, unless you have a Corporate Carbon Tax that eliminates the last incentive there is to pollute—that it’s cheaper.

An America that taxes the big polluters will have less pollution, more innovation and more freedom. It’s that simple.

In a Dodd Administration, every penny of Corporate Carbon Tax revenues, over $50 billion annually, will help us solve our energy problems, funding renewable energy research and development and the safe disposal of nuclear waste. Just as importantly, it will help us bring new technologies to market, from lighting to appliances to automobiles, and deploy them as quickly as possible.

It’s time to be straight with the American people on another issue as well.

If we are going to be honest about our children’s future, then we have to have an honest discussion about global warming. And you can’t have that discussion without talking about natural gas and nuclear power — not when we still derive 50 percent of our electricity from coal.

In a Dodd Administration, I will explore whether we can apply 2I Century technology to make these energy sources as safe and secure as any other.

These are all areas where America can and must be a leader. There is no reason why the United States should be falling behind countries such as Germany, Brazil and Japan when it comes to renewable energy technologies such as wind, solar and biofuels.

If other countries can do it, America can do it better.

That is why, for all its flaws, it was a disgrace that this Administration abandoned the Kyoto Protocol — that they picked up their chair and went home.

In a Dodd Administration, America will lead the world in reversing the effects of global climate change, convening an International Global Warming Summit.

By insisting upon sharing the same renewable energy technologies that will make America energy independent, never again will nations be dependent on oil bribes from Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Chavez. Instead, they will provide new markets for American goods and services, creating conditions for democratic principles to take hold.

Getting energy right is about the future a future where rural America isn’t left behind in our economy, but the engine behind it.

A future where small businesses are not burdened by energy costs but finding innovative ways to drive them down.

A future where my children and yours can live lives of hope, prosperity, and independence.

That’s why, in 2008, some say we need experience, others say we need hope. I say we need both.

For me this is personal. My daughter, Grace, was born two days after the September 11Ih attacks — from the hospital window, we could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon.

Recently, as Grace was getting ready for school one morning, she looked up at me and said, “I wonder what my day is going to be like.”

A moment later, she looked up again and said: “I wonder what my life is going to be like.” She had just turned 5.

My daughter reminds me that we have but one brief moment to get this right. You and I are going to be judged, and very quickly, by a jury that’s coming along.

Our children, yours and mine, they’re going to want to know what you and I did to keep America strong and secure.

They will want to know what we did to address global warming, to preserve our freedoms and values, to create a world with more friends than enemies — when we still had the chance.

That begins with this election, with making America a leader again.

My friends, it begins with getting energy right.

And getting energy right comes down to a simple, fundamental belief about this country of ours. A belief that America draws its strength not from the power of our wealth, as unprecedented as it may be.

Not from the power of our military, unmatched as it is.

Not even from the power of our ideas, remarkable as so many of them have been.

No, what separates America from our neighbors is our people’s unique ability as Americans to come together around those ideas in common purpose — to make our country stronger. To make our world stronger.

To lead not by the example of our force, but by the force of our example.

That, my friends, is what is at stake in this election.

And so, in 2008 and beyond, let them say of us that at the beginning of the 21SL Century, after an uncertain start, America returned to her heritage. America led again.

With your help, I know we will.