Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Special interests would be my answer. We have seen it before. We saw the science mocked that tobacco was injurious to human health. We saw the science mocked that the lead in paint was injurious to children. And now we have seen mockery of the science that shows that when you put unprecedented amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, it changes things.

The science is actually not new. The scientist who created the global warming theory was a scientist named Tindall who published his work around the time of the American Civil War, and it has never been controversial. The idea that when you put enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, it creates a warming effect, a blanketing effect, we have known this literally since the horse-and-buggy era. The difference is that there are now powerful special interests that are involved.

To Senator Udall's points, we are at a point of choice. We can choose to go toward having the environmental needs of the country met and the energy needs of the country met with clean, American-made, manufactured power that is renewable. The Senator is right about the capabilities of offshore wind on the east coast, but that is not the only road we can take. We can continue to support multinational mega-corporations that have no loyalty to any flag or nation, that traffic internationally in oil, and that want to make sure that we stay, as President Bush said, addicted to oil. There is a choice, and I think those special interests have a clear desire as to what choice this country should make. I happen to believe it is contrary to this country's national interests, so that is why we are here fighting to try to steer in the other direction.