“As we begin 2008, this is a sobering reminder of the critical importance of bolstering our nation’s energy security. In some respects, our nation’s vulnerabilities in this area are a matter of geology – the United States has only about 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Some of our vulnerabilities stem from years of neglect in important policy areas – it was only last month that Congress finally required an increase in vehicle fuel economy standards, for the first time in 30 years.


“We’ve made substantial progress towards addressing our energy vulnerabilities in both the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, but much more needs to be done. We need to be sure that energy markets are functioning well and are not driven by manipulation or excessive speculation. We need to have a more sophisticated approach towards managing our national’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And we need to make sure that we strike the right long-term balance between effective environmental protection and robust domestic energy production, whether the latter is from traditional sources of oil and gas or from new alternatives such as biofuels.”