Reply #15: Some articles are up:

[beachmom]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/12/carter.energy /

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former President Carter warned members of Congress on Tuesday that America's failure to achieve energy independence is threatening the country's national security, undermining its long-term potential for economic growth and contributing to global warming.


Former President Carter said Tuesday that the United States must end its energy-based vulnerability.

"Collectively, nothing could be more important than this question of energy," Carter said during a rare presidential appearance before a congressional committee.

"I would guess that our entire status as a leading nation in the world will depend on the role that we play in energy and environment in the future."

Carter, who famously declared "the moral equivalent of war" over energy independence in 1977, told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it was crucial to end the country's "vulnerability to possible pressures and blackmail."

Right now, he noted, "whether we admit it or not, we are very careful not to aggravate our major oil suppliers."

...

Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, opened the hearing by noting that the price of a barrel of oil has fallen $90 below the record high hit in summer 2008. Unfortunately, Kerry added, the "political will to take decisive action has dissipated" as each past energy crisis has subsided.

Carter "had the courage to tell the truth to Americans set America on the right path in the 1970s," Kerry said. "Regrettably, the ensuing years saw those efforts unfunded stripped away."

There is an old video of Carter plus Carter's opening statement:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligen...

Kerry's opening statement is below Carter's.