The House will be forming a new agricultural energy subcommittee in response to the role farming will play in reducing America’s dependence on imported oil, according to Representative John Salazar, a Democrat from Colorado.
The (CO) Summit Daily News reports that Salazar addressed a renewable energy symposium Saturday and said that in the new Democrat-controlled Congress there will be a strong focus on renewable energy and increased energy independence.
“If America were energy-independent, politics in the Middle East would be totally different,” Salazar said. “The only way I can ever see peace is to devalue the only resource they have in the Middle East, which is oil. The only way we can is to develop alternative energy and we must encourage other countries like China to do so, too.”
Salazar sponsored a bill earlier this year that would ensure key provisions of the 2005 Energy Bill pertaining to renewable fuels production would apply to U.S. production only. He is a member of the House committees on Transportation and Agriculture.