This morning’s opening session featured a speech by J.J. Brown, Legislative Aide for Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. He just finished.

This is a long audio file but I think he gave an excellent talk putting into perspective the oil and energy situation on a worldwide level.

Some points that he made include the following. He wanted to bust the myth that oil company profits and the salaries of their CEO’s is responsible for the high price of gas. It’s just not true. He said that taxing oil company profits and giving that money to tax funded government programs like Medicare won’t help generate a single drop of oil. The real reason behind oil price increases he says is the supply and demand situation. Demand is outpacing supply. Simple economics. In fact, he says that the only way our oil companies can hope to compete and develop new resources is with profits which are a result of demand.

One point he made that I thought helped put things in perspective is how much of our world’s oil supply is owned by governments. Our government owns none by comparison. Our oil companies own a fraction of the current oil supply.

In the short term he thinks alternative fuels will go a long way to help us feed our hunger for fuel. He said that his boss, the Senator, fully supports renewable fuel alternatives and providing assistance to companies and organizations who want to build facilities to develop the various alternatives.

I recommend you listen to his talk: JJ Brown Speech (30 min MP3)

Domestic Fuel coverage of the Clean Cities Congress is made possible by the following sponsors: