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I'm delighted to be here to have the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you on a very important subject, and of course that's national energy policy.

I would like to take just a couple of minutes this morning and say a little bit about the background, in terms of how it is we got to where we are, and then comment on a couple of the things that we think are important going forward.  We very much appreciate the fact that you're here, and obviously hope we'll be able to garner your support for reasonable policies, with respect to energy policy going forward.

We got into the business this year of looking at the question of a national energy policy because the president was convinced--and talked about it during last year's campaign—that we had not had a national energy policy for some time. If we could spot a storm cloud on the horizon out there that could conceivably threaten our prosperity as a nation and adversely affect the lives of millions of Americans, it was the fact that we did not have a national energy policy. And you could begin to see manifestations of that in various places around the country.

Most recently, of course, the focus has been on California—the problems that California has been suffering through, partly as a result of flawed regulatory scheme with respect to electric power, partly as a result of combined economic growth and lack of any additional supplies with respect to electric generating capacity over the last 10 years. But we can look at various places around the country and find other problems. We clearly have problems, as well, in the transportation sector. And when we put all of those together, we thought it was important to go forward to address these issues. And at the president's request, we put together the task force that I chair that has now produced the report that the president released last week.